


littlething

by freloux



Category: The Cobblestone Corridor (Web Series)
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-03-15 21:31:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freloux/pseuds/freloux
Summary: There's always more to the story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure no one but me will read this, but I'm posting this on the AO3 largely as a self-motivator. Not mine, don't sue. Watch the original series [here](http://cobblestonecorridor.org/).
> 
> Anyway, the events of this story take place about a year before the main canon.

Her hair is so long - red curls swooping over her shoulders, _his_ shoulders as she kisses him. He’s cupping the back of her head, for better leverage, so his hands are getting all tangled up in it. Claire smells like soft floral perfume and - and _Christ_ , like wet, secret, girlish - she’s basically riding his thigh, pressed up against him. It’s pooling, soaking into his khakis.

“Claire-Claire- _Claire_ , please -” Timothy drops his hands, settling them on her waist. “Um -”

She sits back, forehead slightly wrinkled. Curious. Disappointed, too.

“Allan can’t know about this,” he explains, sheepish, already regretting the words as soon as they’ve tumbled out of his mouth.

“Why?” Claire kisses him anyway. “He doesn’t have to,” she continues, mumbly against his mouth. “Does it matter?”

“It matters to me,” Timothy admits. “Because - because he’s always on about _professionalism_ and the fucking - the fucking - _fuck_ \- “ Claire has returned to grinding on him, except she’s swung her legs so they’re a neat little vee over his hips. So she’s pressed - is pressing - can probably feel -

“Yeah?” Claire asks, as if she knows. He blushes in response.

Timothy’s already overheating in his suit jacket, and he feels stupid, giddy, as he shucks it off. She kisses his neck - she’s got easier access now, with one less layer in the way. It’s less of a surprise, perhaps, than it should be when Claire starts gently worrying at his skin with her teeth. Not biting, not hard, but still enough that it makes him whimper.

But he’s gotta know, he’s curious, wants to feel her. Her underwear is sliding all wetly but there’s still too much fabric in the way: his khakis, his boxers. Christ.

He pushes her skirt up her thighs so he can see. Her underwear is pale pink, with white lace trim. It’s so incredibly girly that it makes his head start buzzing. Because he’s never seen a girl’s underwear before. And it’s Claire’s underwear, and for some reason that squeezes his heart. The idea that she’s wearing this kind of underwear, like, all the time. Hidden. Underneath her skirts, swishing into class, into the newsroom (such as it is).

Pushing up higher, past that little juncture of hip and inner thigh, and then down into her underwear so he’s cupping her vagina. Which is when he realizes that she’s wet - really wet - sopping; his hand is already soaked, just from touching her shallowly. She sighs _yes_ and he slides his fingers inside her. His hand is now crowded between her vagina and his cock. She rides him, just like she did on his thigh, against his cock, so his fingers thrust up into her almost of their own accord. Claire is still kissing him, but it’s aimless now, only tangentially related to getting herself off.

Kissing her is wet, too, as their lips meet and part, meet and part.

She’s different in sex, softer somehow. Her determination directed elsewhere. Claire is focused entirely on him, not the latest tweet or post or follower or or or. That endless list of things she needles him about.

Claire’s pulled back a little from kissing him, now, so they’re just - breathing, but the rhythm has shifted, gone rough, and she’s murmuring his name. Wanting, begging, needing. His hand is cramping, and there are pins and needles in his thigh. And he doesn’t want to stop. Because seeing Claire like this, that weird mix of her usual confidence and this out-of-her-mind desperation is just. It makes his cock twitch, and he just knows she can feel that, too.

She shudders. All the muscles inside her go still for a very, very long time, until they start contracting, squeezing his fingers hard, rippling, shifting. Claire’s staining his khakis. It’s - it’s not gushing, exactly. Just leaking, this slow drip against his crotch. When she goes back to grinding on him, it smears all that wetness, half-caught in her still convulsing muscles. Little movements: pushing her hips forward, up-down, circling.

The school might be rotting from the inside out, but that doesn’t - he doesn’t really care, because he just made a girl come for the first time in his life. He breathes hard, reeling with it, so unfocused with - pride? Surprise? Whatever it is, it makes him unfocused enough that he doesn’t really hear or process what Claire is saying.

“Timothy,” Claire says. Except it doesn’t sound like a word, like his name - she’s just breathed it out, sighing, satisfied. Claire says his name again. Soft. “I get - I get to touch you, too.”

That just makes him short-circuit a little. She can’t be serious. He tells her as much, mumbling confusedly even as she stumbles her fingers down the smooth fabric of his button-down shirt. It’s almost like her fingertips are leaving marks - they’re like hot little points through the fabric. The sound of her messing with the button, then the zipper of his flies is way louder than it has any right to be. Leaking. She cups him, squeezing. But it’s not enough, not nearly. When he whimpers Claire pauses, for one long, terrible moment - so long he thinks that she’ll just get up and leave, off to check the stats of the _Pierce Gazette_ ’s twitter and facebook pages, or to update their long-languishing instagram, all the things that she seems to believe are important. The things they fight about; his idealism and her practicality. 

She doesn’t leave. Instead she draws her hand back up, over his wet - stained, Jesus - crotch, the fabric now dark, soaked with her. With him. Claire undoes the button, slides down the zipper, and reaches. Claire kisses him at the same time that she finally touches him for real, and the shock of it is nearly overwhelming. Like his whole body has narrowed down to those two points. His skin feels too, too warm and more sensitive than he ever thought it could be.

Finds - skin, rubs her fingers over it, finds - and he twitches in her hand.

Her hand is so warm. Warm against him, reflecting his own heat back. Friendly, almost. Touching him shyly. He shifts, whining, and she lifts herself ever so slightly so he can slide his fingers out of her, then squirm awkwardly as he tugs his khakis and boxers down just enough so he doesn’t cut himself on the zipper of his pants.

It’s messy. He can still feel her, clenching and coming, distant, and glances down to see what he looks like in her hand. Her underwear is shoved off to the side, gathered against the inside of her thigh, and her pubic hair (neatly trimmed, he discovers) is damp and matted. Claire’s vagina is dark pink-red, flushed and swollen, and there’s a streak of arousal still dripping out of her - onto the chair, now, since he moved. She’s holding him. Cautious, not restrictive, so he’s free to twitch, sway, overheated and leaking. Free to drip over her fingers, over the burgundy red nail polish she’s so fond of wearing.

Claire lifts herself again, balancing, tipped forward almost - still holding onto him, lifting her skirt with the other hand, and -

Christ. She sinks down on his cock, a little too fast with the force of that awkward balance lost, so now he’s inside her so deep it almost hurts. His name, moaned out of her mouth when she finally adjusts herself, is the filthiest thing he’s ever heard.

Her skirt’s still half bunched in his left hand, so he can still see what she’s doing. And it’s mesmerizing, watching his cock slowly disappearing inside her, only to half-reappear, wet and almost glistening. Claire is shaking with the effort of squeezing and lifting her thighs just to thrust down on him. She’s stopped kissing him; instead her head is bowed, tucked into the crook of his neck, and all he can hear is the sound of her breathing and the beat of her heart as it knocks against his.

He hugs her, weirdly intimate. Dimly aware that his hand is still wet from her body and it’s slippery on her jacket. She’ll have to get it dry cleaned. Timothy imagines what that conversation would be like. Claire’s country club mother frowning, Claire fumbling to explain -

What would she say, really? He pictures it: Claire would snatch it out of her mother’s hands, head held high, walk away - her skirt swishing, her underwear sliding against her -

“I like - “ Claire swallows thickly, wet. “I like, um, having you -” and here she whimpers, cutting off her sentence, so she has to start again. “I like having you inside me. It makes me feel so - unh - so full.”

It has to be past curfew now. They should’ve sent this week’s issue to the printer hours ago and Timothy’s got an exam in his World Civ class tomorrow morning. Instead they’re fucking in the corner of the library and Claire just seems to want. “Pleasepleaseplease,” she says, low, staccato. It’s almost like he’s not even there, like she’s just using his cock, but even that is hot - he’s thinking about how she bent over the table to make her point during their “briefing” meeting that afternoon, how she just knows what it takes to get somewhere, not quite caring who’s in the way.

His vision goes blurry - Claire must’ve been wearing that underwear during the meeting. He wonders what her bra looks like. If she’d show him.

She’s hot, still clutching around him, muscles almost pulling him deeper inside her. Claire is doing most of the work, honestly. Timothy feels helpless. He doesn’t - he doesn’t like that. He has to fight enough to keep the _Gazette_ relevant. Not in this, too, not anymore.

So, still hugging her, he lifts Claire up and waddles a bit off the chair so he can pitch them both forward. He’s on top of her now, drove himself in deep, and she moans. Timothy’s pants and boxers are puddled around his knees so the leverage isn’t quite right.

Claire pants his name. Her hair has gone messy, curls fanned out behind her, and it seems a bit frizzy now, but still -

Beautiful. The word appears out of nowhere, perhaps fueled by hormones and how goddamn wet Claire is. Sticky. It means he has to fuck her that much harder, thrusting awkwardly from a bad angle.

She knows better, though, always does in the end. Claire locks her thighs around his hips and pushes up, turning over so she can bear down on him. Make him hers, just like she’s basically in charge of the _Gazette_ now.

Claire’s getting carpet burn on her knees. He can see the little red marks, the rough texture of the carpet imprinted on her skin. “Come _on_ ,” she whimpers, rocking her hips again. With an impatient little huff of a breath, Claire lifts her skirt, fisting it in her hand, so she can access her clit and roll her fingers across it. He can feel her start to come almost before it registers on her face. It’s deep quivering - he can feel all the muscles inside her clench and spasm, instead of just the shallow ones he could access with only his fingers.

Claire moans, then his name comes out as a series of short gasps. She lets her skirt fall back, and leans down to kiss him. He groans into her mouth. Her tongue is slippery. And -

and he’s coming. His hips jerk, and he pushes himself up, bracing back on his hands, so they can still kiss while she thrusts on him and he comes inside her. Timothy whispers “Claire -“ and his voice breaks. His cock pulses, squeezing out come that spurts wetly against her clenching muscles - as deep inside her as he thinks that it’s possible to be.

She pulls away, briefly, to watch him. Her eyes are wide and dark, reflecting back into his. Squeeze then lock, squeeze then lock. He thinks she was wearing lipstick before; he can’t quite remember. In any case it’s all kissed off now.

Claire’s skirt is wrinkled and damp-looking in the front. She slowly lifts herself off him to adjust it, standing awkwardly, shuffling, while he sits there with his cock going soft and his own wet clothes still bunched down at his ankles.

“I, um.” Timothy doesn’t think he’s ever heard Claire be so quiet, fumbling for words. Whatever she was about to say, she stops, wincing.

“What?” Timothy asks, hurriedly standing up and setting himself to rights. Claire looks down at her skirt, fidgeting with it, which is when he notices what she must be trying to explain. His come, mixed thick with hers, is slowly sliding down the inside of her leg.

“I’m going to go clean up,” Claire says, except she doesn’t move. Neither does he. On impulse, Timothy leans down to kiss her. She’s not unresponsive, but the kiss is lacking her earlier passion. They stand there, Claire’s hands at her sides, Timothy wanting, even needing to kiss her, and Claire almost limp.

She gives him a last smooch before stopping the kiss. Her hair’s a complete mess now, curls uneven, headband askew. “I’ll see you tomorrow I guess?” Timothy asks, about to reach for her hair and brush it away from her face before thinking better of it.

“Ok,” Claire responds. She winces again and Timothy knows that even more of his come is pulsing out of her.

She grabs her book bag and hurries out of the library. He wonders how she’s going to explain it to her resident adviser. Hell, how is _he_ going to?

In the end he wipes off the chair with a tissue unearthed from his pocket, then tosses it into the trash like this never happened. Then he sends a text to Allan explaining that he had a late night with the newspaper and needs a cover.

He’ll deal with the printer in the morning.

***

At assembly Timothy tries to find Claire, but either she skipped or is just doing a very good job of hiding from him.

He tries to shake it but can’t: the mental image of her soft white thigh with his come clinging to her skin. Dripping. “Dude, you ok?” Dex asks.

“Fine,” Timothy lies. It’s time for the morning prayer now; he follows along out of habit.

 _Our Father, which art in heaven_ \- Claire on top of him, urging him on - _hallowed be thy name_ \- Timothy digs his phone out of his pocket and, ignoring the disapproving look of the prefect next to him, pulls up Messenger - _Thy kingdom come, thy will be done_ \- he gets that little notification that Claire is online. Of course she is, she’s practically glued to her phone. - _on earth as it is in heaven_ -

He’s not really paying attention to the words anymore. Instead he opens his chat log with Claire. The most recent text was his, from yesterday night - asking if she could come to the library to research that latest article on the new wing Brock’s family is planning on donating to the school. Even reading that makes his ears go hot. Remembering.

Hesitant, he types a message, thinks better of it, tries again, and finally works up the courage to hit send.

_You OK?_

Then he shuts his phone off.

***

Timothy avoids Allan even though he knows that Allan’s probably starting to get disappointed - and confused - that this week’s issue of the _Gazette_ isn’t out.

It’s cold today, the kind of cold that makes his head feel light, his eyes clear and sharp but tinged with tears from the wind. Timothy walks the smooth white path from the cafeteria to his World Civ class. He’s halfway through the door before he remembers that there’s an exam today, and he hasn’t studied. Instead he’d run blindly back to his dorm, tried to sleep, failed, and just ended up lying in bed staring at the ceiling with his hands crossed over his stomach.

“Happy you decided to join us,” Ms. Hendricks comments. “Take a seat, Timothy.”

Head down, Timothy makes his way to the last available seat - thankfully, it’s in the corner of the very back row. He tries to get his pencils out of his backpack as quietly as possible while Ms. Hendricks passes out the exam sheets.

He stares blankly at the exam, but the words start blurring together. It’s just - his phone vibrates in his pocket, and he should have remembered to put it on silent - _Claire whimpering pleasepleaseplease_ \- Timothy doodles a little star in the corner of the page, up near where he was supposed to write his name.

“Time’s up.” Ms. Hendrick’s voice sounds far away, like he’s still caught between waking and dreaming.

Timothy is still holding his pen. He looks down and the only thing he’s written is that tiny star. With a heavy sigh, Timothy hands in his exam and shrugs on his coat so he can leave as quickly as possible to check his phone. He’s on his way out when he notices that Allan is walking down the hallway towards him. Too late to run: they make eye contact.

“Timothy!” Allan calls.

Timothy’s got his phone in his hand; it’s got weight, not significant, but enough that it feels like an anchor while his head is confused (she’d said “Come _on_ ” and begged) and he wants more than anything to know exactly what she’s texted him, if that vibration was even from her at all.

“What’s up with the Gazette?” Allan asks, once he’s closer. His tone is casual - dismissive, even - but Timothy knows him well enough by now to not feel intimidated, or its cousin: offended.

“There was a problem with the printer,” Timothy explains. The lie comes out too quickly for him to be surprised by it. Besides, it’s half-true; they’d run out of ink before Timothy had texted Claire about meeting.

“Okaaaaay,” Allan says. He’s skeptical, but Timothy remains unfazed. “So I guess there won’t be an issue this week?”

“Guess not,” Timothy replies. “Look, I have to go, ok? I have English next and you know how Grady is about people who are tardy.”

Timothy doesn’t have English next - study period instead, convenient - but at least Allan had Grady last year so he knows the deal. “Bye,” Allan says, with a tiny wave that’s meant to be just a hair shy of condescending.

“Bye.” Timothy makes his escape with a tiny wave of his own; he’s earned the right to give Allan back whatever he dishes out. Almost overwhelmed with relief, Timothy walks back to his dorm so he can hide in his room and finally, _finally_ check his phone.

Trouble is, he’s not alone.


	2. Chapter 2

Claire sits on his desk chair, legs crossed at the ankle. She’s wearing Topsiders, even though the first chill of fall has hit. Timothy wonders if she’s cold, then is surprised at himself for caring.

As it is, he drops his phone, mutters “Fuck,” and has enough sense to close the door behind him before bending to pick it up. “Jesus - Claire, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk,” Claire explains. She gets up from the chair and walks over to him until he’s pinned between her and the door.

“You wanted to talk,” Timothy repeats, feeling stupid. “You couldn’t just, like, text me or something?” In a haze, he remembers that that’s why he’s here in the first place - he hits the fingerprint recognition button so he doesn’t have to waste time punching in the code, and sees that it wasn’t Claire who texted him, but Brock.

Fucking Brock. What would he want?

“No,” Claire says. Timothy looks up from his phone, then slips it into the pocket of his jacket. “This was too important, I needed to see you in person.”

She’s so close now, almost fully pressed against him. Claire’s one head shorter than him. For some reason that matters. They’re very nearly kissing. Timothy swallows; his tongue feels thick in his mouth.

“Timothy?” Claire asks, voice soft. “Do you want to know what color underwear I’m wearing today?”

This is a fantasy, right? This can’t be real. Timothy tries to convince himself that he just fell asleep in World Civ and hasn’t woken up yet. Claire shrugs off her Topsiders and kind of shimmies. A little scrap of fabric works its way down her legs. It’s lavender, and mostly made of lace.

Oh.

“Claire Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?” Timothy asks. He tries to make it land like a joke, but his voice comes out so squeaky that it sounds young, even worried, instead.

Thankfully Claire just laughs at him - not meanly. Sweet, really. She’s tilted up to hug him and laughs into his neck. “Only if you’ll let me,” she finally says.

“Oh, I’ll _let_ you,” Timothy replies, and this time he finally sounds confident. Maybe because Claire encouraged him.

She kisses him, then; it's chaste but suggestive of more. “So you should probably close the blinds in here. Wouldn’t want everyone to see you skipping class so you can have sex.”

“Not the first person to do that,” Timothy replies, but he moves to close the blinds anyway. Little slivers of light filter through. It makes his room seem romantic - sexy, even, especially since Claire’s underwear is on the floor and she’s followed him across the room to kiss him again. This time it’s not sweet, or subtle, but her mouth open against his. He feels drunk as he takes off his jacket and unwinds his scarf. It’s kind of difficult because he has to keep stopping to kiss Claire, so when he tries to untie his shoelaces, he nearly falls over. She just laughs at him again and puts her hands on his hips to hold him steady.

A thought occurs to him, trying to work its way out of his horny, distracted lizard brain. “How’d you get in here, anyway?”

“Brock let me in,” Claire explains, taking off her own jacket. She’s got on her skirt and the standard-issue Pierce uniform white button-down shirt. He really, really wants to see what her bra looks like. “He was taking a smoke break outside and responds well to flirting.”

“Good to know,” Timothy jokes, and Claire laughs. He’s never gotten a girl to laugh this much before - at least, not in a way that sounds genuine. Then again, he’s never gotten a girl to take off her underwear and sit delicately on the side of his bed, either.

He stands between her legs and tilts her head up to kiss her. She shuffles forward a bit and squeezes her thighs against his hips, rubbing up against him.

And he wants it - god, he wants it - but there’s a different kind of curiosity that compels him now. He can smell her, that same soft, feminine scent from before, from the library, and he imagines the same now. How it must be dripping out of her, semi-translucent, clinging to her inner thigh.

He wants to know what it, what she, tastes like and tells her as much, trying to make himself sound less desperate than he in fact feels. Claire’s eyes go wide, surprised, and kisses him with a little whimper. “Is that a yes?” Timothy asks, concerned - wanting to wait and make sure even though his lizard brain is starting to take over again.

“Yes,” Claire responds, impatient. She tips herself backwards and moves, a bit crablike, farther up the bed so Timothy has a bit more room to kneel down. She opens up her legs and he flips up her skirt. Just as he suspected - wondered - _hoped_ , Claire is filthy wet. It’s dripped all over her vagina, her skin blushing pink, and made her inner thighs sticky. He starts there first, licking carefully upwards to follow her arousal to its source.

She tastes clean, like nothing at all in particular, but it’s the texture that really gets him: Claire’s arousal is slippery. He kisses her, slurping a little, and the tiny muscles of her groin spasm. Claire pants, twisting, dripping further into Timothy’s mouth. It’s all over his lips now, too; when he licks them, they taste like her.

The light through the blinds has caught on her pubic hair, and there are slats of light on her thighs as well. Timothy feels like he’s in a painting or something. Claire is just that beautiful. He pushes his tongue up near her clit, just to see what that does, and Claire full-on moans. When he does it again, she murmurs his name, dreamy, and cards her fingers through his hair.

This time, she’s noisy. Perhaps it’s the relative freedom of getting to fuck in Timothy’s single dorm room, instead of an anonymous corner of the library. It’s nice, though: it makes Timothy feel closer to her. Especially when she says his name over and over, louder - then louder still, until it almost makes him uncomfortable.

Timothy pauses long enough to look up at her. Claire’s eyes are so, so dark when they meet his. Her mouth has fallen open a little bit. It honestly looks like she’s going to cry.

“You gotta be quiet,” he says gently. “I mean, I love hearing you, but I don’t really want everyone else to.”

She half laughs, half moans. “I’m sorry, Timothy, it’s just - oh my god, I’m really - it’s just - oversensitive.”

Her words are kind of muffled since her thighs are squeezing his ears now. He puts his hands there, almost holding her in place, which helps because she’s shuddering from what he can assume, happy with himself, is pleasure.

Timothy licks down to her core, then, out of curiosity, pushes his tongue inside her. Now he’s kissing her for real, his whole mouth on her, sucking. Claire whimpers, softer now, only giving a higher little cry when he presses his tongue against her clit.

Hmm. She seems to really like that. Following her lead, Timothy starts sliding his tongue over her clit again. Up-up-up, the little hood of skin over it fully drawn back so he can suck on her clit more deliberately. He nuzzles into her pubic hair. She smells like soap and that perfume she was wearing last night. He wonders if she put it there, if she was expecting this, and the very thought sends a jolt of arousal straight through him, makes him moan.

Without even really thinking about it, since he’s going on blind instinct now, he just pulses his tongue gently. Claire gasps and her hips jolt. She whines, lifting up to meet his tongue and slide on it.

She comes faster this time than she did in the library: muscles clenching in rapid succession. Her arousal is pouring into his mouth, dripping down his chin - Jesus, Claire gets wet. She’s saying something but it doesn’t even sound like real words.

Timothy slurps at her again, chasing the last of it. He stops, though, when Claire sighs and fidgets, loosens her hold on his hair, and drops her thighs. She’s definitely in control of all this - whatever this is. She’s always known how to play the game.

Claire sits up slowly and stretches, then ruffles his hair affectionately. Timothy’s knees are a bit numb; when he stands, his joints crack and he feels that tingly, pins-and-needles rush as sensation returns.

He’s also really hard. Timothy hadn’t given that much thought to it while he was eating Claire out, but now that it’s over, suddenly his erection is all he can think about. Meanwhile, Claire’s hopped off the bed and is putting her jacket and Topsiders back on. She heads for the door, then bends over - Christ - and picks up her underwear. When she hands it to him, he gulps.

“See you at the newspaper meeting later,” she says, and winks. Then she’s gone.

Shit. Literally and figuratively, he’s screwed.

***

Timothy is proud of himself for somehow managing to forget about, or at least, not think about, Claire for the rest of the day. He even gets through math without falling asleep like he usually does - Claire or no Claire.

It’s only when he walks up the stairs to the newspaper office that it hits him again. Claire’s going to be sitting there across from him, totally bare under her skirt. He doesn’t even know how he’s gonna handle that.

Turns out he needn’t have worried, at least not yet. Claire’s late. Timothy sits at the head of the table with a little sigh of relief. He pulls out his phone and clicks through local headlines for potential stories, though he knows that the lead articles are all going to be about that new wing of the library.

“What’s that?” Allan asks suddenly. Startled, Timothy looks up. Allan looks at him inquisitively and gestures to his neck. “Did you fall or something?

“Yeah,” Lewis and Kate say in unison. “Did you fall or something?”

There’s the faintest trace of a smirk floating around Allan’s mouth. “Looks like a hickey to me.”

Timothy places a hand on his neck, right over the little love bite Claire gave him. “I, um.” He has to lie his ass off, he can’t just reveal what they’ve been doing. “There’s a girl from my hometown who came to visit and she was really happy to see me.”

Allan’s smirk gets bigger. God, he can be so obnoxious sometimes. “Yeah? What’s her name?”

Timothy is spared the embarrassment of a reply because Claire enters, flushed. “Sorry everyone! Grady kept us longer than expected. What’s going on?”

“Timothy has a hickey,” Lewis and Kate inform her. “We’re trying to find out who it’s from.”

Claire sets her book bag down and grabs the nearest seat. “I think that’s none of your business. Listen, are we going to gossip about shit or actually get this together? This week’s issue might not have come together, but that doesn’t mean we can’t ramp up our social media presence -” She holds up a hand against Allan’s impending protest. “- and get a head start on next week’s issue.”

Allan gives a little sigh of relief. “She’s right. Let’s focus on the headlines. The new wing of the library has already started construction, so I think we need to investigate why it was announced so quickly.”

Timothy blushes - both grateful that Claire saved him, and a little ashamed because that’s what they were supposed to be doing last night before she kissed him.

While Allan is blathering on about the importance of investigative journalism, Timothy realizes that he still hasn’t checked what Brock texted. What is Claire doing to him? As surreptitiously as possible, Timothy swipes through his notifications to open Brock’s message.

It’s weird. Brock just said, _Meet me at midnight. Library. I have a story for you._


	3. Chapter 3

“Claire? Can I talk to you for a second?” Timothy asks while Allan and Dex are chatting. Lewis and Kate are usually the first to leave. Allan always stays to cover “just one more thing.” Usually that’s just mildly annoying, but today it really bothers Timothy.

The sun is beginning to set, tinging the newsroom a soft amber. It brings out Claire’s curls. She pulls her hair back off her shoulders, so it’s not in the way when she turns to face him. He doesn’t want to look down in her lap, to think, to be tempted.

“What?” Claire asks, innocent as anything. Like she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing to him, how he basically failed an exam because he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“Brock texted me,” Timothy replies. He makes sure to speak as quietly as possible. For some reason, he doesn’t want Allan and Dex to be able to hear this. “He said he has a story for me.”

Claire instantly sits up straighter. Her skirt rides up a little higher as she does so. Timothy gulps, averting his eyes. “Really? Um, did he say what kind of story?”

“No, Claire, he didn’t,” Timothy says. He feels very, very tired now. Maybe it’s because he got no sleep last night, or maybe it’s stress, or maybe he’s also just a little bit scared about what Brock might do to him. After all, Brock is way more popular than he is. He could ruin Timothy and get away with it.

But why would he want to?

“So are you going to meet him?” Claire presses. She’s fidgeting, turning her hands over and over, lacing and unlacing her fingers together.

Timothy looks at her quizzically. “Yeah? It’s the best lead we have about the new library wing. Wait - why?”

She frowns. “It might be dangerous.”

“It might be,” Timothy says. “But it’s for the good of the newspaper,” he continues, hoping to project more resolve than he feels.

Claire laughs, shaky. “Just - just be careful, ok?”

***

Dinner is torture. He’s so distracted by what’s waiting for him later, imagining, fearful. Replaying Claire’s extra warning to be careful, as if he wasn’t nervous enough already. God, he can actively feel his grades declining.

Timothy looks off into the middle distance of the cafeteria. He’s chewing half-heartedly on what passes for food in the caf. You’d think that with the amount of tuition everyone pays the food would be halfway decent.

That’s when he notices something. Claire’s sitting at the popular table. She’s the kind of girl that doesn’t give a shit about labels, which is refreshing, especially at a place like this. She’s got friends in a lot of different groups and doesn’t stick to one table at all, not even the one where Allan and the other newspaper kids hang out, but Timothy doesn’t think he’s ever seen her in Brock’s territory before.

And he definitely hasn’t seen her like this: right next to him, snuggled up, stroking his arm and laughing at every other line.

He remembers Claire’s warning and mentally wills her to be careful, too. As if tethered to him by some invisible string, Claire looks away from Brock and makes eye contact with Timothy. She frowns as if surprised.

That’s when Brock looks up, too, and follows where Claire’s gaze is headed. Timothy waves, only realizing half a beat later how fucking dorky he must look. Embarrassed, he returns to his mystery meat and promises himself he’ll at least _try_ to study tonight.

***

It’s not the first time that Timothy’s pulled an all-nighter, and he knows with each pulse of his growing headache that it won’t be the last. His desk is scattered with papers from World Civ, a printed copy of his half-written essay for Grady (who will _not_ accept uploads on the Pierce Portal all the other teachers use), and a mug stolen from the caf. Timothy’d felt only slightly guilty about it, trying to convince himself that he’d just “forgotten” to return it as he walked out with the mug still in his hand after dinner.

Whatever, he’ll bring it back tomorrow. Right now he’s cramming for the inevitable makeup exam for World Civ. Fucking awkward - it’s his best class after Latin.

He rubs his temples and wills himself to stop looking at his watch every other second. If anything it’s started moving backwards since the last time he checked it.

11:15.

Timothy groans, sips coffee from the mug (long gone cold, but it makes him feel tough, like some kind of noir detective) and returns to highlighting this paragraph on the development of Rome.

It’s his phone that startles him awake at 11:50. It vibrates somewhere beneath the ridiculous mess he’s accumulated, shifting a few papers. Timothy groans again, shakes himself, and unearths the thing, checking the screen briefly to see if Brock (or Claire) has texted him anything. The screen is disconcertingly blank; he can clearly see the lockscreen background (a picture of the Pierce campus, seen from above) without any notifications in the way.

His stomach drops while he walks to the library, sinking lower and lower until he begins to feel nauseous. Or maybe he’s just hungry - that shitty coffee was awhile ago and definitely didn’t help his nerves.

“Over here.” Brock’s voice emerges from somewhere in the darkness.

“Jesus,” Timothy exclaims, waiting for his eyes to adjust towards whatever he’s supposed to be looking at.

Brock’s standing near one of the bulldozers that the construction company drove in for the library wing. He’s got his hands in his pockets and looks remarkably casual for a weird midnight rendezvous.

“Thought you wouldn’t show,” Brock says. He grins, and his teeth glint a little. Timothy is sure his family spends as much on orthodontics and whitening as they do on donations to the school.

Timothy tries to come up with some kind of flippant remark, but the moment passes a bit too quickly. Brock chuckles like that’s an indication of Timothy’s cowardice. “God, you newspaper dweebs are so predictable. Oooh, let’s write a story about a fucking tree that fell in the corner of campus! Oooh, we’ve just _gotta_ cover this donation gala thing! How will anyone find out about this stupid. Fucking. Library wing unless we report on it?”

“Um, it’s hard not to,” Timothy counters. “Since the stupid fucking bulldozers are in the way.” He gestures at the construction site around them.

Brock just laughs again. “I think you know what I mean, Timothy. I mean the reason why there’s a stupid fucking library wing, right? Your little research project? With Claire?”

Timothy flashes back to dinner. She must’ve told him, then. But why?

“I’d stop your investigation if I were you,” Brock continues. “Or else.”

Timothy knows better than to say “Or else what?” but he does anyway. He’s just so goddamn tired. 

“Or else this.”

The punch lands hard. Timothy stumbles, clutching at his jaw. “What the fuck, Brock?”

It’s so dark he can’t even see where Brock’s fist is headed until the second punch connects, this time right in Timothy’s stomach. His lungs feel hard and tight - Timothy lands on his back, the wind knocked out of him.

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Brock confesses. Timothy’s got double vision, so for a brief horrible minute it looks like there are two Brocks, both standing over his bruised body. “You little shit, running into places you don’t belong.”

Timothy gasps for air, trying to scramble away from Brock, but it’s futile with the soft, dug-up ground of the construction site. All it ends up doing is encourage Brock to kick at his struggling body.

“Stop!”

Brock turns around. Claire approaches from behind Timothy, so she and Brock are facing each other over him as he attempts to stand back up.

“Claire?” Timothy asks. How would she know to come - he definitely didn’t say anything after the newspaper meeting - unless Brock told her. In the cafeteria, at dinner - laughing, hand on his shoulder - it doesn't mean anything, his logical side tells him at the same moment an evil little voice in his head hisses that it does.

He wipes at his forehead and his fingertips come away bloody. God, how could he have been so stupid? Claire had been playing him all along. The sex in the library, seducing him later - she was just trying to distract him, lead him away from the truth.

Whatever that truth is, Brock's at the center of it, and now she is, too.

“Timothy -” Claire reaches for him, but he swats her hand away. “Don’t touch me,” he growls. She frowns, but returns her attention to Brock while Timothy finally manages to stand up, albeit on shaky legs.

Brock lifts his hands and faces them, palms out, towards Claire. She ignores the feeble peace-making gesture and curses him out. “You never said anything about beating him up, Brock,” she protests.

“I never said I wouldn’t,” he replies. “All I said was that I wouldn’t hurt him. And look, little shit is finally able to use his legs again.”

Timothy sways a little before leaning against one of the bulldozers for balance. “Can someone please explain to me what the actual fuck is going on?”

“He’s all yours,” Brock scoffs. He retreats in the direction of the dorms - where Timothy should be right now, were it not for the abject hellscape his life has become.


	4. Chapter 4

It takes a few moments after Brock leaves for Timothy to be able to stand up completely. Claire watches him as he does so. Her gaze is careful, but in the darkness he can’t fully read the rest of her expression.

Timothy coughs. Some of it comes out red. “Jesus,” he mutters, wiping at his mouth. He can feel the beginnings of a bruise somewhere in the direction of his forehead where Brock had punched him first. There’s mud all over his clothes. “What a fucking mess.”

Claire walks over to him, picking her way across the small construction site so she won’t ruin her Topsiders, he guesses. Timothy flinches but she doesn’t touch him. “Can I at least help you get cleaned up?” she asks.

He nods. There’s not much in him left to fight anyways.

She leads the way to the girls’ dorm. It’s a side of campus Timothy has never really had much excuse to visit: just someplace shrouded in myth, the stuff of panty raids and dirty jokes. Neither of them talk; Claire only breaks the silence once they’ve reached the front door. “I’m on the second floor,” she explains in a whisper. “So we’re gonna have to be careful.”

“More so than we’re being right now?” Timothy asks. The sarcasm catches both of them by surprise. Claire actually laughs and the night bends softer around them.

“Shh,” she teases, and uses her keycard to open the door.

The lights are dim, not the full fluorescent of daytime, which helps Timothy’s half-headache. He actually feels better with each step. Perhaps it’s because each one is taking him farther away from Brock, or maybe it’s because Claire’s presence is weirdly soothing.

Either way, this place is safe. He knows that whatever’s going on, it can’t touch him here.

Claire reaches back, cautioning him, before they climb the stairs. She cocks her head to listen for any resident advisers or truant dorm-mates. Apparently satisfied, Claire beckons and they walk up towards her room. On the way, he realizes she’s not in uniform. It’s weird to see her in civvies: skinny jeans and a North Face fleece. It almost makes her seem smaller, softer somehow, but in a way he likes.

Her door has a few stickers on it, little cartoons of smiling animals and notes from her friends. Timothy grins. “What?” she asks as she unlocks her door.

“It’s just cute,” Timothy responds. He’s not sure why he’s surprised, but then again, he’s discovered that there’s a lot he doesn’t know about Claire.

She turns on her desk lamp and urges Timothy to close the door behind him. He does so quietly, turning the handle all the way down before it releases so the click won’t alert anyone.

“Sit down,” Claire says, gesturing to her desk chair, and starts bustling around her room while he obeys.

Her room feels a lot homier than Timothy’s own, although that’s probably because he can tell a girl lives here: Claire has filled in all the blank spaces between the furniture that each dorm automatically comes with. There aren’t any cartoon animals on her walls, but she does have a few pictures of her friends tacked up on a bulletin board above her bed. A Vera Bradley backpack sits next to her desk, and her sheets have a similar pattern. Claire even hung up new curtains but he can’t quite make out the color.

Claire kneels at the foot of her bed, where there’s a little trunk. She mutters to herself until she retrieves what she’s looking for: a small first aid kit. Claire sets it on top of the desk and opens the lid. There are bandaids and antiseptic within, along with Tylenol and other pain medications.

“You’re so prepared for everything,” Timothy comments softly. Not sarcasm - he’s genuinely impressed.

Her brows quirk together briefly. “Not everything. Here, hold still.”

She soaks a piece of gauze with antiseptic and lifts it towards his forehead, where the worst of Brock’s damage is. Timothy steels himself for the impending sting, but it still hurts. He sucks in a sharp breath and she stops wiping. “Ok?” she asks, concerned.

“Fine,” he replies, and closes his eyes. That helps. The antiseptic’s sting dulls away the more Claire works.

When she stops, he opens his eyes again. Claire tosses the gauze away, into the trashcan beneath her desk, but even though she’s quick he can still see blood.

“Brock really got me, huh?” he asks. It’s the understatement of the century, and they both know it. Claire half-smiles and boops his nose. “Guess so.”

She rummages around in the first aid kit for a bandaid that’s big enough, then, once she’s applied it, steps back to survey her handiwork. “Everything else is just surface stuff. You’ll be fine soon.”

Then she turns to put the kit away again, but Timothy stops her with a hand on her elbow. “Claire? What’s going on?” Timothy is surprised at the tenderness in his voice. “Whatever it is, we can fix it, ok?”

Claire smiles but there’s no heart in it. “Oh, I very much doubt that, Timothy.”

“I’m serious,” Timothy says. “I just want to know, ok?” He no longer has the heart to be mad at her; Brock made it clear that neither of them matter to him anyway.

“It’s blackmail,” Claire says. She rubs at the top of the kit with her fingertips. Watching the slow, almost deliberate motion makes Timothy swallow back a whimper. Remembering how she touched him with a similar kind of seriousness and intent. “When I came back after the summer, Brock was in my room.”

Timothy’s eyes widen, but Claire isn’t looking at him. Instead, she’s focused down at her feet.

“He was with Grady. And there was a lot of, shall we say, white powder with them.”

“Oh my god,” Timothy breathes.

Claire frowns. “So after Brock yelled at me to get out, I just...ran.”

“And after that?”

Claire puts the first aid kit back down with a heavy sigh. “I crashed in Kate’s room for the night. Claimed bedbugs.” She laughs, and it actually comes out genuine. “She and Lewis are so weird I knew they wouldn’t question anything I gave her.”

Timothy nods, and Claire continues her story. “The next morning I figured it was safe enough to try and return, so I did. Room was empty, they’d cleaned everything up, so I thought that was the end of it. Silly me, it wasn’t.” She shivers. “Brock came to me after class - Grady’s class, how ironic - and told me that his father was going to donate the new library wing, so I’d better keep my mouth shut. And he also asked me to pose as his girlfriend. I think his dad knows about his coke habit, which explains the library, but I got the impression that his thing with Grady is very, very far back in the closet.”

She goes quiet. Timothy waits a beat, not wanting to interrupt her. Once he senses that it’s safe to talk, he asks gently, “And what about me?”

“At first -” Claire stops. “At first. Brock thought you’d - so he asked me to -”

Timothy exhales. So he was right. He makes as if to leave, but Claire pushes him back down. “I said ‘at first.’” She’s more serious than flirty. She wants him to understand.

“Claire - ” Timothy sighs. “I can’t do this, not anymore. Now he probably thinks that you’ve told me, which you have, which means that I know he knows that I know -” His headache is starting up again, so he weakly gestures for a Tylenol. Claire hands it to him, along with her water bottle so he doesn’t have to swallow it dry. “You really are prepared, aren’t you,” he mutters, accepting the pill gratefully.

They look at each other for awhile, letting the reality of this sink in. “I’ll probably have to tell Allan, you know that, right?” Timothy says. “You can’t shoulder all this alone, but neither can I. He might be able to help in ways that I can’t - he’s got connections.”

Allan knows Johnny Baker, and Johnny Baker knows everything.

Claire nods. Her hair is pulled back a little so it frames her face. She’s so beautiful, she really is. His heart squeezes again. Claire bends down slowly and kisses him. It feels like the first time all over again, when she saw him working in the library, when she was in his arms.

He holds onto her, like before, but the angle isn’t quite right - he needs to stand up and hug her for real so she isn’t awkwardly leaning into him. Timothy’s knees buck a little as he does so, but Claire holds him back and that gets him steady.

Her kisses are soft. She’s not pushing him, and he isn’t pushing back. Instead, she just lets their lips come together in gentle, even patterns; when he finally meets his tongue with hers, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

They stay like that, kissing, and Timothy strokes her hair. She makes a little contented noise and stands up, almost on her tiptoes, to meet his touch. Timothy stops kissing her only long enough to tell her how beautiful she is.

Even though the room is only half-lit from her desk lamp, he can still tell she’s blushing. He can feel her smile against his mouth.

Claire pulls away, but doesn’t leave his hug. “I know you said you can’t do this anymore,” Claire says. “But can we?”

Timothy hadn’t stopped to think about it; his most important goal up till then had been to kiss her. Now, though, he pauses. She’s not pushing him here, either. He could stop this if he wanted.

“How am I going to sneak out?” Timothy asks, weighing the options.

Claire thinks for a moment. “The window?”

“I’m not about to get muddy again, or break any part of my body - evidently that’s Brock’s job,” Timothy says. He rolls his eyes and they both laugh before Timothy goes serious again. “Whatever we do, you really can’t give me any more hickeys. I can’t have Allan interrogating me about my love life again.”

“Promise,” Claire says.

Timothy hugs her, and they start kissing again. She takes one of his hands in hers, catching it over her heartbeat. He wonders if his sounds nearly as loud, if she can tell - probably so, she’s proven she knows him well enough by now.

Claire stops kissing him long enough to take off her fleece. She’s only wearing a bra underneath. It seems like some kind of small victory to finally see it. Her bra is pale, seafoam-y blue, with smooth, darker blue straps. Timothy touches the cups, stroking lightly, and she smiles. “This is my favorite one,” she says.

“I can see why,” Timothy says. He feels terrible as soon as he says it - like it was some weird mix of reverent and pervy. Claire laughs. “Do you want me to take it off?” Timothy asks.

“Only if you want,” Claire replies.

“I want,” Timothy responds. It’s the truth.

Without taking her eyes off him, Claire guides his hands behind her back, helping him feel for the little clasp that hooks her bra together. Once he releases it, she slides the straps off her shoulders and hangs her bra over the back of her desk chair.

She seems nervous, standing in front of him topless, but Timothy doesn’t have a lot of (read: any) breasts to compare hers to so he’s not quite sure why she’s so worried. Perhaps it’s knowing the truth about a person. To say: here I am.

Timothy cups her breasts in his hands, feeling by touch, by intuition, what feels good to her. Her nipples are soft and pink. They seem sensitive, too - when Timothy strokes his hands over them, she twists a little, arching up into his hands.

He takes off his coat, his scarf, and folds them over her bra. No great sense of urgency; he knows he can let this go as far as he wants. Claire helps him take off his jacket and they cross their hands over each other trying to undo the buttons on his shirt.

Timothy is so relieved to get out of his muddy, wet, gross clothes - stained with dirt and probably blood as well - that he moves more quickly than Claire does. The two of them fumble, discarding his shirt and just letting it fall to the floor without bothering to hang it neatly.

After he takes off his shoes, he tries to take off his pants, too. They saw the worst of it, so the accumulated dirt makes it difficult. “I don’t want to -” Timothy begins, and Claire stops undoing his flies. She studies his face. Hers is so clear, innocent, even after all she’s seen. Claire must feel safe with him, too. “No, I -” Timothy sighs. “I don’t want to track mud all over your room and leave my dirty clothes on your carpet.” God, she probably vacuums it.

Claire glances at the muddy footprints he left behind him when he was walking over to her desk chair. “Little late for that, Timothy.”

Timothy claps a hand to his forehead remembering too late what Brock did to him, and winces from the pain. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s ok,” Claire reassures him. “You’re ok. We’ll get through this, all right?”

The role reversal feels weird. Honestly, Timothy’s not sure who’s meant to be reassuring whom, what this means, what they’ll do. Mostly, right now he just wants to kiss Claire. It doesn’t much matter how many clothes they have on.

So he does. He just goes on kissing her, open-mouthed and needy, eyes closed, whimpering, holding her face while she hugs him. Claire slowly leads them to her bed and falls backwards onto it, taking him with her. The mattress is so soft. It’s a relief for how much he’s aching: joints stiff, body bruised. He lets her lead; for once he doesn’t have to try otherwise, and begins to wonder why he ever did. The two of them shift so they’re lying side by side. Claire strokes his cheek and kisses his mouth. He feels bad since he probably tastes like that shitty coffee. She doesn’t seem to mind; even if she does, she hasn’t said anything about it.

Timothy’s getting sleepy. It’s just so nice here, to be in her bed, kissing her, no direction at all.

***

When Timothy wakes up the next morning, his headache has returned. He groans and rolls over, trying to shield his eyes from the sunlight coming in through the curtains. The world comes back in through fits and starts - Brock punching him, Claire’s first aid kit. Kissing Claire over and over and over like he never wanted to stop.

Timothy blinks slowly, willing his headache to recede. The room sharpens into specific details, then: photographs of people he doesn’t quite recognize, a desk lamp left turned on, someone’s backpack, muddy footprints by the desk, clothes on the floor and draped over the desk chair.

Where is he?

He hears someone’s quiet breathing next to him and looks over. Claire is lying next to him, in her underwear but no bra. She’s asleep, curled up against his side in the fetal position, and looks cozy. Peaceful.

Then he looks down at himself and discovers he’s not exactly wearing a lot of clothes himself. Timothy sighs and squints at the little alarm clock by the bed. It reads 7:45, which means that assembly’s in 15 minutes and neither of them are in any shape to go. Regardless, he’s going to have to leave otherwise he’ll definitely get demerits at the very least, suspension at worst. As gingerly as possible, Timothy begins to sit up so he can get out of bed.

Unfortunately, his movements manage to wake up Claire. She startles with a sharp intake of breath, then stretches her arms up over her head and hooks her leg to crack her back, obviously stiff from sleep.

“Leaving so soon?” she asks sleepily, but her tone is a hair close to flirting.

Timothy swings his legs back onto the bed so he can face her fully. “Did we?” he asks slowly, hoping the question is clear.

“No,” Claire says. She sits up as well and gives him a kiss. “Are you trying to go to assembly?”

He laughs. “I’ll be late if I do. We both would. I was just trying to leave so I don’t get caught.”

“So stay,” Claire says, tugging him back into her arms.

With minimal resistance, he complies. They kiss, gentle, since Timothy still hurts from last night. Claire tilts herself, sliding one leg in between his, so she can get even closer. She rubs up onto his thigh and her underwear moves wetly against his skin. “You look like such a bad boy,” Claire murmurs in between kisses, reaching up to gently touch his forehead where the bandage is.

Timothy smiles. “You like it?”

“I don’t like why it happened,” Claire says, “but dangerous is a good look on you.”

“Speaking of.” He pauses, not wanting to interrupt this, but knows he needs to continue. “I’ll try to talk to Allan today. You’ll have to come with me, though, so you can tell the full story - you know it better than I do.”

Claire nods, and then starts laughing. “Can we stop bringing up Allan while we’re having sex?”

“Sounds good to me.” Timothy cups her ass and drags her up on top of him. She whimpers; it makes his thigh rub up against her again. He’s starting to feel sticky.

He doesn’t want to move from the bed. It’s so comfortable here, making out with Claire, the exhaustion leaking from his bones until it recedes to a faint ache. They go so very slowly. She takes his hand and guides it down over her underwear, letting the faint wetness of it seep against his fingertips. When he pushes a little, almost dipping into her, she responds by swiveling her hips so she’s fully between his legs. It’s the closest to naked they’ve ever been. He skims his touch up her side with his free hand. Her skin is soft.

Claire tucks her hair behind her ears so it doesn’t curtain over him when she bends over to kiss him. She doesn’t press down fully, she knows he’s still hurting.

“We should probably use a condom this time,” Timothy says quietly.

Claire’s eyes widen. “You’re definitely missing assembly, are you sure you want to miss class, too?”

Timothy sighs. “There are more important things going on, Claire.” They both know that he’s not just talking about sex. The scale of things has shifted.

She senses that he’s still tired from last night so she gets up instead. Timothy watches her open her desk drawer and pull out a little box of Trojans. He’s not sure why that makes him sad. Maybe it’s just jealousy - she looks so experienced, confident, as she takes one crinkly square of foil and returns to the bed. He wonders who else there’s been. Maybe Brock, maybe someone else.

Claire climbs back into bed with him and they kiss so long and lazy that Timothy ceases to care how much time is passing. In between tender little kisses, Claire takes off her underwear and helps him push down his boxers. Every time he winces, she pauses. Timothy cups the side of her face and smears kisses against her mouth, along her jaw, down to her neck. He hopes that tells her just how ok this is, how he doesn’t want to be anywhere but here, how it helps him forget what’s waiting for them on the other side.

She leaves their underwear over the side of the bed, on top of the little pile of his clothes that was already there. Claire strokes him with gentle hands and rolls the condom down. He reaches, palms empty, but she pushes his arms down onto the bed, careful not to hurt him, and guides him inside her.

Even through the thin membrane of the condom, he can feel how slippery-wet-hot Claire is. She rides him slowly, breasts swaying ever so slightly. Her forehead is creased, mouth open a little, irregular breathing, tiny cries. Timothy wants to lift, to thrust harder, but he doesn’t have the energy. Instead he just lets Claire move. It’s easier that way. And it’s like Claire is taking care of him, not using him, not like before. This is true, and real, and here.


	5. Chapter 5

By the time they’re done, Timothy has just enough time to haul ass back to the boys’ dorm to take a shower and get ready for his next class.

“Wait,” Claire says, just as he’s reached for the door handle.

Timothy makes a quarter turn back to her. “What?” he asks. Perhaps it comes out a bit too sharply, because she takes a step backwards.

“Yikes,” Claire replies. “I just wanted - here.” She hands him a little tube of makeup and a smaller bandaid. “The first one is to cover up your hickey, the second is so your forehead is hopefully less obvious.”

Timothy takes both and sticks them into his coat pocket. “Thanks.”

“For sure,” Claire says. She kisses him goodbye and Timothy sneaks out.

The fates must finally be smiling on him, or else the other Pierce students are all actually in class for once, because Timothy doesn’t run into anyone on his way back to the boys’ dorm. He swipes his keycard and hurries into his room. Once inside, he strips off his clothes in record time, grabs a towel and soap, and makes for the bathroom. The hot water feels like a miracle. Timothy knows he can’t stay for long, though, and resists the urge to linger and forget.

Afterwards he stares at himself in the mirror so he can apply the makeup. He doesn’t recognize himself: Claire’s hickey is still visible on his neck (although fading), his forehead is bruised and still a bit caked with blood, and there are bags under his eyes. He looks older, rugged. Dangerous.

The thought makes him grin, despite everything, because it reminds him of Claire’s flirtatious comment. _I don’t like why it happened, but dangerous is a good look on you._

***

His next class is with Grady. It’s also one of the few classes that Timothy shares with Brock. Timothy squares his shoulders and tries to walk into the room with as much confidence as he can muster. It’s not much, but at least it gets him through the door.

There are two seats left, but neither of them are anywhere near Brock so Timothy says a silent prayer of thanks to whoever’s looking out for him today. Grady turns from the blackboard as Timothy sits down. He startles, briefly, at the bandaid on Timothy’s forehead - too quick for anyone but Timothy to notice and register why. No one else asks him about it, except for Allan when they end up next to each other in line at the caf.

“Seriously,” Allan says under his breath before he thanks the lunch lady and the two of them walk over to the newspaper table. “What is _happening_ to you?”

Timothy glances around to check if anyone’s listening, then says he’s gonna text Claire so she can come and explain.

She must not have been very far behind them in the lunch line because Claire arrives about ten minutes later. She sets down her tray and does the same check for eavesdroppers before sitting next to Allan.

“So?” Allan asks, expectant.

Claire sighs. “It’s about Brock.”

Allan sucks in a breath and looks at Timothy’s forehead again. Timothy answers his silent question. “He beat me up last night,” Timothy says.

“Brock thought I was getting too involved,” he continues, “with investigating the new library wing so he wanted to teach me a lesson.”

It’s then that Claire begins to explain about how the library is a coverup for Brock’s coke habit. “For good PR, in case that ever got out.”

“He told you that?” Allan asks. “Or did you put two and two together?”

“The latter,” Claire says.

Allan smiles. Probably the first real smile that Timothy’s ever seen on him. It’s kind of weird to be honest. “I’m impressed,” he says.

“There’s more,” Claire says. She seems to fold in on herself. “Brock and Grady are sleeping together.”

Allan lifts his eyebrows so far skyward that Timothy begins to worry that they’ll fall off. “And how did you discover -”

Claire explains how she caught the two of them in her room.

“What the fuck were they doing there?” Allan asks. Timothy hasn’t heard him swear before. Neither has Claire. The two of them reel backwards and Claire actually has to catch her breath.

“I don’t know,” she finally admits. “That’s what we need your help figuring out.”

“Johnny Baker,” Allan answers. “He’ll know.”

“We were hoping you’d say that,” Timothy says. “Johnny could also help us blow this case wide open. Screw Brock and the library, this needs to be front page news.”

Allan agrees. “Should we get the others involved as well?”

“Not yet,” Claire says. “We don’t want to put them in danger, too. Listen, I need to go sit with Brock now, otherwise he’ll start to get suspicious.”

Timothy explains about the “fake girlfriend” plot as she walks away, taking her tray with her.

Allan gives a low whistle. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, whilst we practice to deceive...”

***

The three of them meet outside the boys’ dorm after classes let out. Allan leads the way inside but cautions them first. “Johnny never comes without a price,” he explains. “So there might be more investments as we go along.”

“What did you get him this time?” Timothy asks.

Allan pulls a little cardboard box, about the size of a deck of cards, out of his coat pocket. “Pack of smokes.”

“Like prison,” Timothy says.

“It’s private school,” Claire says. “Wouldn’t be too far off.”

Allan doesn’t quite smile - quick turn of the lips, gone as soon as Timothy sees it - but he’s never seen Allan express much emotion at all, so this little adventure together is getting more and more interesting.

They reach the end of the hallway and stop just outside the door on the left. Allan knocks - _shave and a haircut, two cents_ \- and Johnny opens the door. He looks as disheveled as ever: black hair flopping into his eyes, uniform rumpled, fresh cigarette tucked behind one ear.

He glances around then gestures them inside.

Johnny’s room is a mess. No, scratch that. It’s beyond a mess and into Superfund-site territory. There are old pizza boxes everywhere. Empty cans of Red Bull and other energy drinks line the windowsill. An ashtray full of old cigarette butts sits next to them. It’s unclear just how many people live here since multiple computers sit on the bottom bunk in the corner and more still are on the two desks that have been pushed together across from the beds. Clothes are alternately hung up between the slats of the bunkbeds and tossed carelessly onto the floor - both civvies like band t-shirts and dark-rinse jeans as well as Pierce uniforms. A pervasive smell of sweat and testosterone, along with, inexplicably, candy and girls’ perfume, lingers in the air.

Claire wrinkles her nose and asks if she can crack a window.

“Sure, go ahead,” Johnny says, waving a distracted hand like he’s used to it. He slumps down into his desk chair and sits facing them with his fingers steepled. “So? What’s up?”

“We need information,” Timothy begins.

Neither he nor Claire - nor, it seems, Allan, even though this is his contact - know where to sit since Johnny took the one available chair and all the other surfaces are covered with the detritus that only a teenage boy can accumulate. The three of them just end up standing awkwardly, Allan and Timothy with their hands in their coat pockets and Claire’s folded almost primly in front of her skirt.

Johnny doesn’t seem to notice. He barks out a laugh. “Everyone comes to me for information, Hunter. Unless they just come here to come, know what I’m saying?”

He winks at Claire, who blushes and looks away. Timothy feels a brief spark of jealousy.

Allan rolls his eyes and gestures as though he’s holding Timothy back. “Let me take this.” He takes a deep breath and begins. “Johnny, we think that Brock is involved in a coke ring.”

“That’s a pretty steep accusation,” Johnny replies. “I mean, pot is one thing: Ms. Whatsername loves those magic brownies, and of course I’m not above the occasional toke myself -”

“More than occasional,” Allan mutters, disguising it with a cough.

“ - but coke is _serious_ , Archer. You could get expelled for that kind of shit.”

“We’re hoping that Brock will be the one who gets expelled,” Timothy supplies.

“He speaks!” Johnny crows. “Hunter, I know you’ve had it out for Brock since he gave you that swirly freshman year, but he’s got power and influence that even I don’t have. This is headed into dangerous territory.”

“So will you help us?” Claire asks.

Before answering, Johnny swivels his chair towards Allan. “Is she our honeypot?”

“No,” Claire says firmly. “Brock’s interests lie in the...opposite direction.”

“Huh,” Johnny says. “I’ve seen it all and done about half of it. That one surprises me, though. With who?”

“Grady,” Claire says. She sounds as tired as Timothy feels.

“Now that doesn’t surprise me,” Johnny says thoughtfully, but doesn’t elaborate further.

“So will you help us?” Claire repeats, this time with the tone of someone talking to a very stupid toddler.

“Obviously,” Johnny says, cracking a devilish smile. “Just wanted to make sure you knew the stakes. However, my services never come without a price…”

“We know,” Allan says through clenched teeth. Before Johnny can ask him what he’s brought, Allan hands him the cigarette pack.

Johnny examines the box, running a finger over the brand, and nods. “I’ll accept this. For now. Depending on what I find, you might have to cough up some extra dough.”

“I was expecting that.” Allan hands him a second pack. “Consider this an advance.”

Johnny flicks his gaze back up to the three of them. “You’re really that confident?”

“We have to be,” Allan replies.

“If you say so,” Johnny says, his tone skeptical. He swivels his chair back around so he’s facing the bank of computers. With a few clicks, he pulls up a document and beckons them over.

They all stand behind Johnny as he hunches over his computer. “Ok, well, this is Brock’s class schedule, so that’s a start," he says, making a few more keystrokes. "I'm of the opinion you should never leave a digital trail, so I'll print this out for you guys to memorize." There's a whirring sound in the corner and they glance over to see a printer none of them noticed before. It starts spitting out paper in record time before shutting off again with a little sigh.

Timothy gapes. “How did you find -"

Johnny shakes his head. “Oh, my sweet summer child. Look, I presume you guys thought far enough ahead to try and search his room, right?”

“Um -" Allan murmurs.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Johnny continues. It sounds like he’s trying to suppress a laugh. “These are the least likely times that he’ll be there. Plus he’s got football practice. So really it’s almost as if he’s inviting you in. One of you will have to keep a lookout, of course.”

“And if he comes back?” Allan asks skeptically.

Timothy suddenly remembers - _Brock responds well to flirting_. He meets Claire’s eye and sees that she must be thinking the same thing. Timothy, Claire, and Johnny all look at Allan. He backs away slowly, palms up. “No. No way. Besides, Brock doesn’t even know me.”

“All the better for it,” Johnny says. “Anonymous hookup? It’s ideal.”

“I’m not actually going to -” Allan swallows. “Am I?”

“Not if you don’t want to,” Johnny says. He’s joking, but Allan turns pale. “God, Archer, calm down. So here’s the plan…”


	6. Chapter 6

They don’t acknowledge each other at breakfast the next morning. Timothy feels like a spy. He’s got Brock’s schedule like a blueprint in his mind: where to go and when, the routine so thoroughly memorized that the rest is just noise. Each class is just time passing. The knot in his stomach grows heavier and darker the closer they get to football practice, when Brock will be gone and it’s a two hour window to find as much as they can.

Even two hours doesn’t feel like enough.

When class lets out for the day, Timothy sees Claire on the other side of campus. Her beret is perched neatly on her head, and she’s got a Starbucks latte in one manicured hand, but she looks troubled, as if she’s been getting as much sleep as he has (not much). They walk towards each other and Timothy wants more than anything to kiss her, but Allan’s coming now, too, and besides, they still haven’t talked about whether or not this is a thing, or just something they need from each other right now.

Maybe the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

He can’t think about that. They’re on a mission.

With Claire and Allan behind him, Timothy swipes his keycard and opens the door to the boys’ dorm. Claire tosses her latte, empty now, in the trashcan outside as they go. One less thing to focus on. Timothy’s room is on the first floor. When they walk past it, Timothy has a brief, visceral desire to just abandon this whole thing and sleep until it’s over.

Instead he braces himself and continues the walk up to the third floor where Brock’s room is. Allan posts himself as lookout while Timothy fiddles with the spare key that Johnny gave them. “I really fucking hope this works,” Timothy mutters. Claire puts her hand over his and guides the key into the lock. Her skin is somehow warm even though it was cold outside - or maybe that’s just his nerves wanting there to be something between them. She smiles up at him and it’s a perfect little moment that he doesn’t have time to treasure right now, but will definitely hold onto for later. Something special, secret, an oasis from everything they’re doing.

Of course, it flickers away much too soon. Like he’d said: _Allan can’t know about this_.

Brock’s door creaks open and Timothy takes a deep breath before going inside. Claire is close behind him.

His room is surprisingly neat. It smells faintly of Axe, but that’s about it. A pennant for the Pierce football team has been hung up over his desk. It barely looks like he lives here, which is weird in itself.

Claire gets a set of latex gloves out of her bookbag and hands one pair to Timothy. “Work in quadrants,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll start at his desk.”

Timothy’s not sure what they’re expecting to find, really, but takes the gloves anyway.

The two of them spread out, Claire at Brock’s desk, Timothy at his bed. They go in silence. All of Timothy’s nerves are heightened. He listens for the slightest noise outside, for anything beyond Allan’s breathing and occasional shuffle. When Claire accidentally drops something, Timothy nearly yells. As it is, he curses a blue streak under his breath and turns around to see what it was. Claire is - was - holding the little bobblehead of Pierce’s football team mascot. Thankfully it didn’t break at all, but she swears, too, and puts it back at the closest approximation of where she found it originally, which was behind a framed photo of Brock and his dad. The two of them are both wearing football jerseys and have their arms around each other.

The photo must’ve been taken after Brock won the game last year because he’s holding a trophy in his free hand and actually looks _happy_ for once, instead of the pretentious asshole he usually is.

It kind of makes Timothy feel sorry for him.

They look at each other and force a smile about it before turning back to work. Timothy kneels down to look under Brock’s bed. A beat-up Adidas duffle has been shoved way in the corner. As carefully as possible, Timothy slides it out. He’s just about to unzip the top compartment to begin looking through Brock’s stuff when a familiar voice calls Allan’s name outside the door.

Timothy’s stomach just about drops. It’s Brock. He’s back early. 

“Archer,” Brock says companionably, with not a hint of malice beneath. His friendly tone is so weird for Timothy to hear that it almost makes his skin crawl.

“Larson,” Allan returns in the exact same tone.

“I kind of need to get into my room,” Brock says. “So, uh, would you mind moving?”

“No,” Allan says.

Timothy is pretty sure he’s stopped breathing. Claire is frozen at Brock’s desk. _What the fuck,_ Timothy mouths at her. She shakes her head and shrugs.

Brock laughs but now there’s that mean-spirited angle to it. “What did you just say?”

“Um, I said no,” Allan says. For once Timothy’s grateful for Allan’s stubborn attitude. As annoying as it can be, at least here it’s being put to good use. “Because I need to talk to you. About - about football.”

“Yeah? What about it?”

 _God bless the dumb jocks,_ Timothy thinks. There’s the rustle of fabric and he can picture Brock hefting his football gear and standing up straighter.

“I saw you play,” Allan says. Holy woah. Is that what Allan sounds like when he flirts? His voice has gone all deep and suggestive. “You looked good out there.”

“Really?” Brock asks, falsely surprised in the way that people who are used to being complimented are, like it sounds new every time but they still love hearing it.

Allan laughs. “Oh, yeah. _Really_ good. Do you want to show me some of those moves?”

“Like which ones?” Brock returns. He’s clearly planning on showing all of them but is still humoring Allan just to see where this might lead.

Timothy glances over at Claire, who’s shaking with silent laughter.

“You tell me,” Allan says encouragingly. “I want to see you in action, big boy.”

 _Oh my god,_ Claire mouths at Timothy. He’s starting to laugh himself.

“Can I at least get changed first? I have -”

“No no no,” Allan insists. “You smell all sweaty and nice, I love it. Like you’ve been working _extra_ hard. Know what I mean?”

“So where should we do this?” Brock asks. Holy shit, he really does respond well to flirting.

“How about my place?” Allan asks. “We’d have a lot of privacy. No one would ever suspect a thing.”

Their footsteps recede and Timothy finally starts breathing again. “What _was_ that?” he asks Claire, who waited a beat before continuing to open Brock’s desk drawers.

“Our plan working,” Claire responds.

Timothy can get behind that. Or maybe it’s Allan getting behind Brock.

He pulls the Adidas bag the rest of the way out from under Brock’s bed and begins unzipping it. He was expecting it to unleash the full force of what Allan was talking about, the sweat and grime, except nowhere near as sexy. Instead the bag just smells faintly musty, the way the rest of Brock’s room smells, as though the bag has been used recently.

Timothy delicately lifts away old football pads and a muddy helmet, avoiding the disturbing collection of jockstraps. He gasps. There, nestled in the bottom corner, is a little plastic bag.

***

He nearly drops it as he lifts the baggie with shaking hands. “Claire!” he hisses.

She turns around and sees what he’s holding. “Oh, my god. Oh, oh my god.” Her voice is unsteady and she wrings her hands before clenching her eyes tightly shut like that’s going to make this all go away.

“Deep breaths,” Timothy says. He’s honestly not sure whether he’s talking to himself or to Claire. “Get out your phone.”

Claire nods. She takes off her gloves, sets them on Brock’s desk, and digs her phone out from the pocket in her skirt. Timothy swears he can hear her swallow hard (maybe her throat is as dry as his) before she lifts her phone up, makes a few clicks to pull up her camera, and points it as the baggie Timothy is holding. Then she moves closer, taking a few more pictures as she does so just for a better angle, making sure not to include Timothy himself in any of the images.

“Look,” she whispers, gesturing with the phone in her hand to direct Timothy’s attention toward something. Brock’s name is written in clear block letters on the bag.

“Wow,” Timothy sighs. “Quick, get a few more shots of this. We can’t be in here much longer otherwise Brock and his new boy toy are going to come back at any minute.”

Claire does so, zooming in on Brock’s name but careful that it doesn’t end up too blurry. When both of them are satisfied, Claire puts her phone away again and Timothy replaces the baggie and the Adidas duffle back under the bed. He stands up, only to discover that his legs have turned to jelly in the meantime. He stumbles for a minute, catching his breath, and Claire reaches to steady them. Timothy smiles at her and ok, he _really_ wants to kiss her right now.

So he does, Brock and Allan and this whole fucking mess be damned.

“I’m scared,” Claire admits softly in between kisses. “Of Brock. Of what he did to you and what he could do to me - to us. He already beat you up once,” Claire says. She’s not fully crying yet but Timothy can see the faint beginnings of tears in her eyes. “We’re in over our heads, Timothy.”

She kisses him, leaning in, moving close. He loves this part, where it’s her body against his and their arms around each other. Claire sways a little as she presses in even closer. Like she’s looking for something and isn’t sure how to find it.

“I want to be near you,” she says, pulling back just enough for him to notice a little worried line between her eyebrows. “All the time. I want to feel you -” Claire pauses, swallows, looks away. “I didn’t think that it would end up this way, that you’d make me so confused.”

“Why are you confused?” Timothy asks. He tilts her chin up with his fingers and gives her a little kiss.

“Because,” Claire explains. “Because -”

Timothy flashes back to when they were in her room. She’d put her hand on his shoulder, looked at him seriously, and tried to explain. _I said, ‘at first.’_

Instead of finishing her sentence, Claire kisses him again, this time with more urgency. She moves her lips, persistent, until he yields and follows her tongue into her mouth. Claire tastes like the Starbucks latte she’d been drinking.

“Do you want to get caught?” Timothy asks, breathless. This is a bad idea on so many different levels.

“Maybe - I just - please, Timothy.” Claire reaches down to undo his belt. Just as she’s about to start in on his flies, Timothy grabs her wrists.

“Claire, I don’t have anything.”

Claire sighs. “I don’t care - I want -” She keeps cutting herself off with needy little kisses. “I’m scared, Timothy.”

“Turn around,” Timothy says. Claire hiccups, surprised, about to ask him something. “Just - turn around.”

He doesn’t want to see her face, doesn’t want to see that fear in her eyes reflecting his own.

No coherent sentences now, just half-formed directions: “come on -” “- get this-” “ _off_ , just please -” “Claire -”

Together, they pull down Claire’s underwear, her tights (another sign that fall has hit: no bare legs anymore) and then Timothy struggles with his own set of layers. Time always seems to slow down when they do this, like it takes twice as long to take off clothes, just when you want to get that part over with as quickly as possible.

Claire bends over a little more, like an invitation, bracing her hands against the door. Timothy gulps and holds his cock as he positions himself against her. He’s not even inside her yet, he’s just rubbing the head of his cock against the outside of her vagina, but even that makes her quiver.

Before he loses his nerve, Timothy finally begins pushing inside Claire. She squeaks at the sensation, which eventually turns into panting the deeper he goes, then a deep groan when he stops moving slowly and just shoves himself up and in as far as he can.

Timothy slips his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. Her lips rub against his palm and he can feel her breathing, the desperate noises she’s trying to make. It makes him moan, too. He tries to keep himself quiet by kissing her neck. Her skin is so warm from the residual heat that was trapped under her hair.

Claire takes his other hand away from her hip and guides it over hers, over her clit. She’s still holding onto her skirt so it’s fabric and skin, fabric and skin. Her slippery wetness spills between their fingers.

This position is very different than the ones they’ve tried before. It makes him feel confident. He can get in deep and doesn’t have to work as hard for it. All his thoughts tumble out of his head and he loses the momentum, sliding back out of Claire just enough that he can hear her sigh. “Please don’t stop,” she says, muffled from his palm.

He pauses, still halfway outside her, then pushes back in, adjusting until he’s flush against her back and her ass is rubbing against him, too. He wants to let her feel it, wants to pour it all in and never stop, let her have it, go hard and rough. The sense of time running out. They could get caught any minute, this whole thing could burn itself to the ground, but Timothy’s so tired, so fucking tired, and he just wants Claire, needs her.

He can begin to see her knuckles turning white while she presses harder on the door. They sway together like this while he thrusts shallowly, until he finally works up the courage to really fuck her, desperate, pushing fiercely and biting at her neck. He drops his hand away from her mouth so he can grab her waist for balance as he thrusts. Now he can hear her for real and he’s so focused on making her come that he doesn’t care if anyone else can.

Claire moans. “I’m gonna, I’m gonna come, please -”

“So do it,” Timothy says. His voice is rough, caught in between groans from the effort of fucking her as intensely as he can.

She whines and twists her hips, pulling him with her so he slides in her arousal while she comes. It’s like rolling waves that break, fade, recede from shore, only to come back with the tide. Claire doesn’t say anything at all. Instead she just gasps, panting with exertion, and drops her head like she’s trying to process the reality of what they’re doing, what they just did.

Timothy sighs and thrusts into her once-twice- _finally_. Claire whimpers as he pumps all his come inside her, gives her everything he can, pushes it in deep. The two of them shudder. For Claire, it’s a full-body thing that forces both their hands to rub over her clit again. She’s only half caught up from her past few orgasms before she’s squeezing him fiercely again, almost too hard. “Uhhhnnn…” she moans, shivering.

He pulls out slowly, gasping, and just holds her for a moment, panting against her neck. Claire takes their hands away from her clit. The filmy stickiness of her arousal is caught between their fingers. It’s messy and undignified, the complete opposite of everything Pierce is supposed to be, everything they’ve learned that it isn’t. She sucks at it and the rough tastebud texture of her tongue almost gets Timothy hard again. When she’s done, reasonably clean, she kisses their fingertips.

“That was a really bad idea,” Timothy says quietly while he pulls up his boxer shorts and khakis. His cock is still a little sensitive so he hisses at the rub of the fabric.

“I know,” Claire replies. They’re not facing each other, still just pressed together from behind. “I just needed you.”

“Me too.”


	7. Chapter 7

Timothy swears he’s still breathing hard when they leave Brock’s room. They’d done a last check to make sure Claire hadn’t left her gloves on the desk, that she’d taken her phone, that Timothy’d well and truly replaced Brock’s football gear back to the way it was, that the door’s locked. But still. It’s the adrenaline involved that gets him.

They’re not holding hands when they leave, they can’t be. Timothy just murmurs that he’s going to text Allan, let him know they’re done, what they found. He doesn’t have the energy to come up with a codeword or secret message, just texts that they’ll be in Johnny’s room for a debrief. His phone makes a tiny woosh sound as it delivers the text and it sounds so loud in the hallway outside Brock’s room that he nearly faints. They’ll get caught for sure now, he thinks, except they don’t, and that’s a relief. They’re free for now.

“Can we trust him?” Timothy asks, maybe half a beat too late. “Johnny, I mean.”

“As much as we can trust anyone at this school,” Claire says. “Which honestly says a lot.”

This time Johnny’s semi-considerate: he clears off space on the bottom bunk for them to sit, almost knee to knee, while they wait for Allan.

When he finally shows up, his ears are pink. Johnny looks up at him, a smirk and a joke just at the edge of his mouth. “So?” he asks. The most loaded of questions.

“So,” Allan replies but doesn’t reveal anything more.

Claire shifts next to Timothy on the bed. He wonders what it feels like for her, his come sliding out of her, if it’s soaking into the fabric of her underwear or if it’s still sitting inside her. He can’t think about that too much, though, otherwise he’ll get hard again.

“Show him the pictures, Claire,” Timothy says, trying to focus on what’s actually important right now.

Claire tugs her phone out of the pocket of her skirt again. Timothy looks downward, briefly, to see if there’s any - if he’s stained -

There’s nothing. His chest feels light with relief.

“ - found this,” Claire’s saying. Timothy crashes back to reality to see that she’s been scrolling through her phone with the incriminating pictures, pulling up one after the other. Johnny looks surprised for probably the first time in his life, and Allan - well, Timothy’s pretty sure that he’ll pass out at any moment.

“Wow,” Allan breathes when she’s done. “Time to take this to the printers.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Timothy asks, surprising everyone - especially himself - with how blunt he sounds. “I mean, once Brock and Grady know we’re onto them, they’ll work even harder to cover their tracks.”

Johnny swivels in his chair, fidgeting, his body reflecting the thoughts that must constantly be racing through his head at any given moment. “Hunter’s got a point, much as I hate to admit it. First you have to delete those pictures off your phone, Robinson. Like I said: digital trail.”

Claire lifts an eyebrow. “So where should I put them?”

Johnny starts fidgeting again. Clearly his mouth doesn’t work fast enough for his brain. “No, I meant - ok, here. I can lift those pictures off your phone and put them on my computer. I’ve been running my own secure server since, like, fifth grade. Nothing can get in or out. Your shit’ll be safe.”

“Can we trust you?” Timothy asks. He sounds more comfortable than before, as if voicing his concerns to Claire first gave him some confidence. To his surprise, she reaches out her hand for him to squeeze, fleeting, before going back to clutching her phone between her palms.

All Johnny does is laugh. “Look, Hunter, you either trust me or you don’t, I really could give less of a shit. I’ve got my own baggage with Brock. It’s high time Pierce sees him fall and I honestly don’t really care how that happens. It was only a matter of when. So when you newspaper geeks came strolling through my door, it felt like manna from heaven. I can be the behind-the-scenes-guy if you want, all I’m saying is, if you go somewhere else, it’ll be a lot harder to take him down.”

Claire silently holds out her phone.

***

“What do you think Johnny’s deal is with Brock?” Timothy asks over dinner. Mystery meat again. At least this time it’s masked by a heavy spaghetti sauce that makes it semi-edible.

Allan shrugs mid-chew and waits a moment to swallow before answering. “Beats me. But have you guys noticed how he doesn’t call Brock by his last name like he does with the rest of us? Like -” Allan edits his voice into a scarily-accurate impression of Johnny. “- hey, Archer, couldja hand me that phone charger?”

Claire busts out laughing and the three of them descend into impersonating Johnny, each one getting more ridiculous than the last.

The fun cuts short abruptly when Brock appears. He leans into Claire from behind, settling his hands heavily on her shoulders. She jumps. “Jesus, Brock, what’re you doing here?”

He laughs, a cold, bitter sound. Timothy remembers the photo of Brock with his dad - an indication that Brock was, at one point, cheerful. He wonders where that version of Brock went, and why.

“Just thought it’d be nice if my girlfriend had dinner with me,” Brock says, a creepy weight to his words. “Wouldn’t it?”

Claire frowns briefly before plastering on the fakest smile that Timothy has ever seen. “Yes. It would be nice. Coming!”

Brock saunters away, back to the popular table, and Claire puts her beret back on before grabbing her tray and saying a hasty goodbye. Timothy watches her go, feeling sad and wistful. Allan brings him back to reality as usual. “Hey, Timothy!” he says, snapping his fingers in front of Timothy’s face. “Earth to -”

Timothy pushes Allan’s hand away, annoyed. “I heard you the first time.” He takes an angry bite of mystery meat and, mouth still half-full, asks what the next phase of the plan is.

“I think we should target Grady now,” Allan replies. “You know, go straight for the jugular.”

“Good idea,” Timothy says, but his eyes are on Claire as she sits down next to Brock. “But what kind of blood is going to come out?”


	8. Chapter 8

Timothy double-checks the World Civ syllabus to see when the makeup exam is scheduled. He has a week, but he’s had worse, last minute cramming like the best of them.

It seems like everything’s last minute these days regardless. He’s tense, always waiting for the next phone call, the next alert from Allan or, more often now, Johnny. Claire’s texts are a relief - for both of them, he knows.

Timothy’s gotten really good at sneaking out of her room.

***

Allan is the one to break the holding pattern when he suggests they hold a stakeout to establish if there are regular places that Brock and Grady meet.

“Interesting proposal, Archer,” Johnny says, leaning back in one of the study room chairs. He tilts it so far that Timothy is certain it’ll just topple over. “I mean, I have binoculars…”

“Why?” Timothy risks asking. At this point nothing really surprises him anymore.

Johnny’s face splits into a suggestive smirk. “For watching cheerleading practice, obviously.”

“You _pervert_!” Claire exclaims, smacking him on the arm.

Johnny shrugs. “I am what I am.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Allan continues, pacing back and forth in front of the little blackboard on the other side of the room. Johnny had suggested they start meeting here in the library study rooms instead of always coming over to his place. Neutral territory, he’d explained. Less likely to raise suspicion.

Johnny lets his chair fall back into place. It lands with a truly impressive thump, startling the others while Johnny launches into his next thought, completely unfazed. “Problem is, though, my skills only go so far. I can’t just, like, predict when they’ll get together. Knowing class schedules goes a long way but obviously if they’re doing this on the DL, their little get-togethers are going to be pretty erratic.”

Timothy sits back, watching Johnny’s motormouth run. Something’s nagging him, something that stems from the way he’s beginning to wonder if Johnny, too, has a broader role to play in this whole house of cards than he first suspected.

He’s still thinking about that when he leaves, after saying a distracted goodbye and wandering back to his room. He’s careless in studying, only half-heartedly trying to memorize the flashcards some (much smarter and more focused) past version of himself had the good sense to make. Claire texts him but he doesn’t answer. It does, at least, knock something loose from the cobwebby corners of his mind.

Of course. Just like Johnny’s said so many times before when he’s helped them: _Never leave a digital trail._

***

“I’ll admit, Hunter, I underestimated you at first,” Johnny says the next day, shutting the study room door behind him and dumping his backpack on the floor next to Claire’s Michael Kors laptop bag, Allan’s beat-up leather satchel, and Timothy’s own ancient Jansport. “I thought that Archer here was the ringmaster, Robinson the femme fatale, and you the loyal lackey, but it’s nice to see you getting in on the action yourself.”

“Thanks,” Timothy replies, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Johnny flashes him a winning smile before continuing. “Honestly, though, your suggestion is child’s play. Run a sweep on Brock and Grady’s cellphones, pull the incriminating evidence, snap some more pictures of them together, and _et voilà_ , Grady’s in jail and Brock’s doing time at some public school hundreds of miles away.”

“If it’s so easy,” Claire pipes up skeptically, “then why didn’t you do it before?”

Johnny actually flinches, a rare display of vulnerability that gives them all pause. When he finally speaks, his voice has its usual dismissive, confident inflection, but this time there’s a kind of pain underneath. “I have the arm of the newspaper on my side now. You guys do the grunt work, I’m the man behind the curtain. Remember?”

Claire doesn’t fall for the decoy. “You said you’d been waiting to bring Brock down. Is there something more you have on him that the rest of us don’t?”

Johnny blusters for only a moment. “You really wanna know?”

“That’s why I’m asking, Johnny.” Claire’s voice is so sharp that Johnny’s name comes out like a swearword.

Johnny sighs. He clenches and unclenches his fists, spins one of Allan’s many pens between his fingers, looks away.

Claire opts for the honey-not-vinegar approach. “What happened to you? With Brock?” Her tone is gentle now, but there’s a tether underneath her words intended to draw out whatever it is that Johnny’s been carrying around here all this time.

“If you must know, Brock was my first guy crush,” Johnny admits, looking down at his hands. “And I was his. It was a secret we kept with each other, for each other. Cliche as it may be, he broke my heart. I’ve embraced my bisexuality, but Brock’s gay and it’s harder for him: his dad discovered the two of us together after the football game last year.”

Timothy remembers that photo again, how happy Brock used to be. Maybe he has a softer side than any of them expected.

After only a moment’s hesitation, Johnny continues, which draws Timothy back out of his thoughts. “Let’s just say the ending wasn’t pretty. After that I was caught between wanting to destroy him for the way things happened between us, and just feeling sorry for him. Then you guys said he’d gotten involved with Grady and what it is that Grady’s literally dealing - honestly, this is more out of concern now than anything else.”

When Johnny finishes, the room goes completely quiet for several beats before Claire risks reaching out her hand. Johnny doesn’t notice, so she draws it back.

“Then why did you act surprised when I said his interests lie in the opposite direction?” Claire asks slowly.

“Wasn’t sure I could trust you guys yet. There’s a lot of bullshit going around if you hadn’t noticed.” Johnny laughs bitterly.

Timothy’s perched on the edge of the table that’s in the middle of the study room. He swings his legs thoughtfully. “What about Grady, then? You said that Grady didn’t surprise you. Any particular reason why?”

Johnny glances up at him. He starts fiddling with Allan’s pen again, flipping it over his hands and watching it skitter across the table before snatching it back. Timothy catches Allan’s eye and almost starts laughing. It must be taking all of Allan’s restraint not to reclaim the pen: Timothy watches Allan’s fastidiousness war with the knowledge that now really, _really_ isn’t the time.

“What’s this, a fucking interrogation?” Johnny finally snaps. “I have my reasons, ok? I’ve shared enough with you already.”

“If you don’t want to be part of this anymore - ” Claire begins before exchanging worried looks with Allan and Timothy.

Johnny shakes his head and flips the pen off the edge of the table. “No. Let’s take that motherfucker to hell where he belongs.”

***

It takes Johnny a few days to bypass the various firewalls involved in accessing Brock and Grady’s phones. Timothy focuses on World Civ the meantime. It helps to have a distraction and his usual other option, the _Gazette_ , has honestly fallen by the wayside. Maybe it’s because the work he’s doing with Allan and Claire feels more critical somehow. In the meantime, they just share puff pieces, the kind of thing Brock had criticized them for: the so-called food in the caf, an upcoming production of _The Glass Menagerie_ that Dex’s article describes as “moving.” Lewis and Kate are tasked with football coverage. When Allan had discussed assignments with Claire and Timothy, they all had agreed that it would be too dangerous for the three of them them to write anything even remotely related to Brock.

“And don’t worry, Dex will help you,” Timothy reassures Lewis, who’s taking a worried sip of whatever it is that he and Kate are always drinking.

After the briefing meeting, Timothy waits for Dex, Lewis, and Kate to clear out before huddling with Allan and Claire. “Anything new from Johnny?” Claire asks almost absentmindedly while all three of them scroll through their notifications.

Allan frowns at his phone, then swipes his finger over the screen to pull something up. “He says that ‘the canary’s in the coal mine.’ I honestly have no idea what that means. We never talked about any kind of secret signals.”

“Guess we should head over and find out,” Timothy says, voice low even though it’s only the three of them here.

It’s an utter cliche, but the wind picks up as they walk outside, tossing leaves aimlessly around their ankles like so many little anxieties. 

Johnny’s waiting for them, switching between computer screens and browser tabs with practiced speed. He doesn’t look up when they walk in, just says a short “Close the door.” Allan does so and they stand behind Johnny while he mutters to himself, trying to find what he’s looking for.

“Ok,” he says at last, clicking out of one of the many windows pulled up on his screens. “Drop tonight. Field house. 11:30 PM.”

***

Which is how Timothy ends up doing the second all-nighter in as many weeks. He and Allan are sandwiched together in the bushes behind the field house, trading off Johnny’s binoculars. After much debate, they’d decided that it should be Johnny doing the ambush itself since evidently he’s got even more skin in the game than any of them. Claire’s crouched next to them with her phone at the ready to get more pictures. Minutes tick by. Timothy’s legs are cramping like he’s been doing leg day at the gym.

“Look,” Allan finally whispers, pointing towards the path that leads up to the field house.

Timothy squints through the binoculars. Brock is walking up, hands in his pockets, whistling in a way that belies his worried expression. Johnny’s pressed against the wall that’s diagonal to the path. There’s no sign of Grady yet but Timothy already has goosebumps prickling up along his skin just from waiting for so long.

Movement flickers in the corner of Timothy’s vision, and there he is: Grady is approaching from the opposite direction. He’s a bit hunched over, which makes it look like he’s trying - and failing - to conceal something on the inside of his coat. Claire takes a few pictures.

Just at the moment when Grady and Brock are about to meet, Johnny steps out. Brock stumbles backwards at the sight of him. “Johnny - what the fuck - what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Johnny replies easily.

Brock smiles, weak and almost watery. “Fair enough.”

Claire drops her hands back down. This particular exchange doesn’t need to be recorded: it seems weirdly private, intimate, even; knowing what they do about Brock and Johnny’s shared history, it seems wise to leave that part alone and not air at least this aspect of Brock’s dirty laundry.

It doesn’t seem like Johnny noticed Grady. He still doesn’t, until it’s too late.

“Walking around after hours, are we?” he asks before landing a punch right in Johnny’s gut. Claire has the good sense to recover quickly and snap a photo.

Brock cries out, reaching for Johnny right as he collapses. Timothy aches in sympathy, remembering that he’d been in the same position not so long ago. It feels like a lifetime has passed since then. He sees Brock in a much different light now and finds himself extending pity, and even forgiveness, at how Brock was just acting out in reaction to a situation that’s so obviously spiraled out of his control. Claire might have said that she and Timothy were in over their heads, but Timothy is starting to realize that Brock is, too.

Brock’s not to blame after all. Grady is.


	9. Chapter 9

It feels like everything happens in slow motion. Timothy thinks his ears are ringing; they feel somehow closed-off, distant. Claire’s taking more pictures on her phone. There’s muffled shouting but Timothy can’t tell who from. Lights - someone’s flashlight? Their phone? The flashlight function _on_ their phone?

Timothy comes to when Allan shakes him. Johnny’s on the ground, holding his stomach, moaning. His voice is choked when he says “Run. I can take care of myself.”

Until now, Timothy hadn’t thought that Brock and Grady had noticed him, Claire, or Allan from their position behind the fieldhouse. Maybe Johnny’s just talking to Brock, who is now bent over him, supporting him by the neck with his other hand on Johnny’s side, near where Grady punched him.

Either way, the three of them take off before Grady can get to them, too. Claire murmurs that she’s gonna call campus safety, 911, anything - she’s already dialing, breathing hard, hand shaking against her phone from the motion of running. “Hello? Yes, Claire Robinson -”

She’s so confident, _capable_ , despite the circumstances. She always is. Timothy’s heart squeezes again, and he knows that it’s not from the effort of running toward the dorms. It’s because he’s realized that he loves her. He wants to tell her, but he also knows that it has to sound right, and he doesn’t want it to get discarded in the wake of breaking the biggest story that the _Gazette_ has ever seen.

His heart’s in his throat and Johnny’s binoculars swing heavily against his chest with each step. The pressure lands on one of the places that Brock kicked him but it hurts more abstractly than anything else. Timothy’s got other things to worry about, just single-mindedly focused on getting to the dorms so they can figure out what to do next.

“Ok, thank you -” Claire hangs up. She’s panting, but her hair is only ever-so-slightly mussed and somehow her beret is still on. She’s amazing. “Campus security’s on their way, and they called 911 as well. Ten minutes, tops, is what they said.”

Allan huffs out a breath. “ _Ten minutes_ , Claire? Johnny doesn’t have that kind of time. Grady’s going to fucking beat him into a pulp!”

“I didn’t see you sticking around to help!” Claire snaps. “Jesus, Allan, you’re always so high-and-mighty about everything. This is the real world, it’s not some ivory tower or, like, a fucking - I don’t know -”

She waves her hands helplessly but wills herself not to cry. Timothy risks putting his arms around her, not even caring if Allan decides to read something into it. Claire’s body feels soft, warm, reassuring. She hugs him back. Now would be the time to tell her. Maybe she’s expecting it, because Claire looks up at him with something like hope. But Allan’s here standing next to them, and sirens are beginning to wail in the distance, and none of this is right.

The moment flickers away, just like Timothy thought it would. He lets go of Claire, both of them disappointed, and gets ready to explain everything that just happened.

***

Watching Grady get led away in handcuffs is surreal. He doesn’t look sad, or angry, or disappointed. His face is just a blank. Brock’s difficult to read as well, but in the swirling blue and red lights of the police cars pulled up around the fieldhouse, Timothy notices that Brock and Johnny are holding hands.

After Grady’s led away, the five of them shuffle into an anonymous room somewhere in the campus safety building. At least ten cops file in behind them.

They’d decided that Allan should speak first; he’s got the confidence (and, let’s be honest, just enough cockiness) to be able to tell this story in a way that will deflect questions as easily as a duck shedding water. However, before he can even get a word out, Brock clears his throat and begins his side of things. He and Johnny are sitting next to each other at the crappy metal table in the middle of the room, cops scattered next to them, Claire and Timothy somewhere in the mix. They didn’t end up next to each other, and Timothy somehow feels lost without her. He needs her here, closer.

Brock doesn’t talk about Johnny, though. He talks about Grady. Whenever the cops have a follow-up question, they refer to him as “Brian Gradjikowitz,” or sometimes just “Mr. Gradjikowitz,” which is weird - he’s been Grady for as long as Timothy can remember.

He describes feeling lost, adrift, after winning the football game last year. _After getting caught with Johnny_ , he doesn’t say, but Timothy can tell what Brock really means, just from the way Johnny’s half-leaning into him, almost touching, not quite. How Grady’d approached him - he coughs - _Mr. Gradjikowitz_ , correcting himself for the record that one of the cops is taking down, writing in some tiny little notebook that Timothy is sure will get filled up before Brock even finishes his story. Maybe the guy’s handwriting is small.

The coke gets in there eventually, and Brock coughs again when it does. “It was easy,” he starts, then wipes at his eyes angrily, like he hates himself for this, hates himself more for crying about it. Probably does, although Timothy doesn’t want to assume.

“Easy to…?” another cop asks. Timothy can’t be bothered to keep track of all their names, which blend together anyways, names like Becky and Mike and Tom, official-sounding yet friendly somehow. This one has a crewcut and a slight drawl that sounds completely foreign, out-of-place in this tiny Connecticut town.

“Easy to use it. Helped me forget,” Brock says. “We’d just. Meet. Usually at the fieldhouse, sometimes other places.” Here he sounds like a combination of unsteady jock having trouble stringing words together and scared little kid. Maybe one compounds the other.

“Mmmkay,” Records Guy says. He whispers something to Crewcut then gestures at Timothy, Claire, and Allan. “So what are these other students doing here?”

Now is Allan’s chance to shine. “Allan Archer with the _Pierce Gazette_. Student newspaper -”

Timothy swears he can see Crewcut roll his eyes.

“ - We received an anonymous tip that Mr. Gradjikowitz was pressuring students into cocaine and decided to investigate.”

A third cop, this one female, speaks up. “Who tipped you?”

Claire stiffens, unnoticed by everyone except for Timothy. After a long, quasi-dramatic pause, she speaks. “I did. Mr. Gradjikowitz and Brock were in my room earlier in September. It appeared that they had just had a sexual encounter and were then snorting cocaine.”

Her voice is remarkably steady, so matter-of-fact for what it is she just said, but Crewcut starts laughing. “Why the fuck - excuse me - didn’t you contact the authorities, then? Listen, I’m sure it’s fun to play amateur sleuth or what-have-you, but Jesus, kids.” He stops laughing when Records Guy shoots him a look. “Brock, can you explain why you were in -”

“Claire. Claire Robinson,” Claire supplies, and clearly preens at the way her name sounds so formal, adult, when Crewcut says “ - Ms. Robinson’s room?”

Brock stares straight ahead at the wall when he responds. “Mr. Gradjikowitz explained to me that it would be less likely for us to get caught there. So few students were back at school at that point because the semester doesn’t start until mid-September.”

“And you complied,” Lady Cop says.

“I complied.”


	10. Chapter 10

Johnny speaks next. He admits that it was Grady who’d approached him first. _So that’s what he had been trying to say all along,_ Timothy realizes. The guilt, now revealed, dissipates.

Stunned silence. Even Crewcut has to take a breath. Brock sits quietly with his hands folded in front of him. Timothy notices Johnny lift a hand towards Brock’s shoulder before letting it fall back.

After several moments Brock asks, “Can I call my dad?” His voice is soft, so another cop asks him to repeat himself. Even when he does, Brock sounds nervous, as though calling his dad is clinging to his last shred of hope. Timothy knows that it is, that Mr. Larson can sweep this all away so easily.

Records Guy raises an eyebrow. “Uh, sure thing, kid.”

The cops mutter amongst themselves before one of them gets Brock a phone.

“You’re free to go,” Lady Cop tells the rest of them. Allan’s ready to raise hell at that but Timothy knows it’s not worth fighting. “C’mon,” Timothy says, steering him out of the room, Claire and Johnny close behind.

“But - but he’s -” Allan splutters as they stand outside the campus safety building, shuddering from the windchill factor. “I don’t want Brock’s fancy footwork! We deserve justice, we’ve worked hard enough for that.”

“And sometimes you have to let it go,” Timothy responds, voice heavy. “Look, I’m as pissed about it as you are, but - just - just.”

He sighs and Johnny laughs hollowly. “He’s right, you know. I guess this has to be a private victory. For now.”

Allan is clearly about to launch into a whole diatribe but Timothy doesn’t have the energy to listen to it right now. Instead he wishes everyone a good night and heads back to the dorms. He’s about halfway there when he feels a hand on his bicep. Timothy startles and turns around.

It’s Claire.

“Hey,” she says quietly. “I, um. I don’t want to be alone tonight. Is that ok?” She doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Yeah,” Timothy responds. “It’s ok.” He smiles at her and she finally looks up to smile back.

It’s more than ok, really, but he doesn’t know how else to express it. Claire’s like a tether, a line tugging him slowly and gently towards safety.

“Let me go in with Allan and Johnny first so they don’t suspect anything,” Timothy says. “I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes?”

She nods and Timothy walks quickly to catch up with the other guys. Allan’s muttering to himself: angry, pretentious, frustrated. The same boy that Timothy has known and put up with for so long. Johnny’s quiet. It’s a nice counterpoint to Allan’s stream-of-consciousness tirade.

They disperse into the dorms. Timothy waits several beats to ensure that Allan and Johnny are in their rooms before returning outside. Seeing Claire again, even after just a few moments apart, lifts his spirits and helps him forget. He wants to tell her. He has to tell her. It’s his own nervousness holding him back. She must sense that, right? Feminine intuition and all that. Even so, she doesn’t push him, doesn’t ask, doesn’t confirm. That in itself soothes his nerves.

He knows the way to her room by heart now. It’s familiar, reassuring. Nothing in the hallways has changed, except for posters advertising the upcoming Fall Formal, which is evidently happening next week. Timothy hadn’t even realized it was a thing to begin with. It’s somehow jarring to think that life at this school has gone on without them while they were working this case.

Claire closes and locks the door behind them before pulling him into a kiss. Kissing her feels like relief, like utter relief. Her lips are soft and sticky with gloss, so each kiss drags for just a beat longer. Timothy closes his eyes to savor it. He really could stay here just to sleep, even if they don’t do anything else (although he wants to); he’s tired from it all, from the knowledge that the case really is almost over.

She hugs him close and opens her mouth just a little wider so they’re full-on frenching. Timothy moans and she smiles against his lips as if satisfied. _I don’t want to be alone tonight._ A simple statement and yet - does she think she’s been alone all this time, even beforehand? He knows with a sad drop in his gut that he shouldn’t have let that moment go.

So he decides to find a way to prove it to her. Timothy shifts the kiss so now he’s the one in charge: pressing a little harder against her body, moving his lips more insistently. Claire squeaks in surprise but returns the kisses as if to match him. She groans when he tangles a hand in her hair, stroking up past her ears. Timothy uses his other hand to try and flail out of his coat until she laughs into his mouth and reaches out to take both his hands in hers. She guides them over her body, letting him linger at her breasts as if to say _there’s more where that came from._

Timothy’s heartbeat sounds loud in his ears, the pounding rush of blood making his head dizzy. He’s lost track of his hands, of hers; he’s conscious of just holding onto her as much as he can. Timothy loves kissing Claire for that reason. It’s just so easy for her to become dominant. He doesn’t even have to think about it, about anything - all he has to do is follow her lead, try to keep up as she helps him take her clothes off. Coat to uniform jacket to. She’s standing in front of him, layer by layer, hands together, hands apart, kissing. Her uniform: the one he sees every day, the one he’s taken off of her piece by piece so many times before.

After she’s half-undressed, he takes his own turn. Coat to uniform jacket to. He’s shedding the past and the weight of what they’ve been through with each layer that he leaves behind in a forgotten heap on top of her clothes on her floor. She hugs him again, skin to skin. He could just pick her up, slide into her, and have it be over, just like that, but that thought seems like more of a horny distraction, a fantasy, than anything else. Timothy wants to focus on Claire, try to tell her without words how much she means to him, and hope the words come later.

So he takes his time with it. He lets their kisses go back to being slow and not nearly as deep while they undress the rest of the way. Something occurs to him halfway through unzipping her skirt. “I’ve been thinking. About - about us.” He doesn’t look at her. His hands are frozen on her waist. “Would you go to the Fall Formal with me?” Timothy feels awkward saying it, like it’s come out of nowhere, even though he feels sincere at the same time.

Claire laughs, surprised, and takes his hands off the zipper to finish the job for him. Her skirt falls to the floor, resting on her bare feet. Her toenails are painted - he thinks the color is Watermelon by Essie; he’s seen the tiny, white-capped bottle on her desk before.

“Yes, I will go to the Fall Formal with you,” Claire says with a smile. She laughs again, maybe a bit awkward herself: _was there anything else?_ The silent question floats between them, as ephemeral as smoke.

Timothy almost - he almost says yes, he almost says no. Besides, both of them are true. He kisses her in answer and she seems satisfied with that. Claire tilts her head and they kiss, and kiss, and kiss. She lets her soft little hands come to rest on his hips, just under the waistband of his boxers. Somehow that area of skin seems almost oversensitive. Maybe it’s the proximity. Claire keeps her hands there before pushing his boxers down, inch by inch.

His breath hitches. She kisses him like reassurance and - she holds onto him. First at his hip then lower still. Claire curves her right hand around his cock while she reaches up to stroke his neck with the other, rubbing her fingers at the point just under where his hair starts. Timothy sighs and lets his eyelids drift shut as he pushes his cock up into her hand - not thrusting, just moving his hips to follow her rhythm. He doesn’t know what do do with his hands so he just ends up hugging Claire instead. The loudest thing now is their breathing; his has become so uneven, punctuated by little whimpers. Claire rubs her palm against the head of his cock, letting it smear all that wet precome almost up to her fingers, before smoothly tugging at his cock just a little too hard. He groans and holds her hand, overlapping their fingers over the thick outline of his veins.

But he doesn’t want to come, not yet, not when Claire’s this near to him - he’s not about to let her go. This is an oasis from Brock, from the impending, inevitable fallout, and he wants to stay here as long as he can. He trips his fingers down her back and lifts her up from the waist so he can carry her to her bed. His cock sways stiffly as he moves, nearly bumping up between her thighs. Claire responds with a noise that’s halfway between a laugh and a moan. They slot neatly together on her bed, curved like puzzle pieces. He’s not inside her yet, instead they’re busy kissing. Every time they move his cock thrusts shallowly between her folds. Claire squirms and - and he pushes. There’s some kind of finality in it.

Warm. He’s so warm inside her, she’s so warm around him. Claire’s thighs hold him tight. It gives him a rush of happy hormones just to see her smile underneath him, to kiss her all soft and sweet. His chest is sweaty so when her nipples rub against him, they do so a bit stickily. She moans at the sensitivity.

Now it hits him. They’ve had sex, they’ve fucked - but here, but now, they are well and truly making love. It’s in the tenderness of her hands while she traces up and down his sides, squeezing every so often, pressing the pads of her fingers, whenever he pushes into her and strokes up against that particularly nervy place. It’s her eyes, blue meeting brown, that sharp and testing edge dulled away. (For him, at least - Allan always deserves to be taken down a notch.) She undulates her hips, trying to get him deeper still, and when he gets there, she shivers.

“Thank you,” Claire says quietly.

“For…?” Timothy asks. There could be so many answers to that. He’s worried about which one she’ll say but isn’t quite sure why.

“For making sure I’m not alone.”


	11. Chapter 11

They both lie quietly together, after. A hundred thoughts are racing through Timothy’s head at any one moment. He can tell that the same is true for Claire - she’s shifting restlessly and several times she seems just about to speak before stopping herself.

“What?” he finally asks. Timothy rolls onto his side so he can face her.

She looks back at him, but her eyes are a little unfocused like she’s concentrating on something else.

“I’m worried about Johnny,” she admits. “Because of his relationship to Brock - and to Grady.” Claire sighs deeply. “Jesus, what it must’ve been like for him. Watching your -” She doesn’t know what to call whatever it was that Brock and Johnny really were to each other and the way they describe themselves. She tries again. “Watching Brock fall in with something you knew was wrong. Not just because of what it was on the surface, but because you’d been there. And then feeling powerless to stop it.”

Timothy puts his arm around her. Claire stiffens at the touch and Timothy jerks away, feeling awkward. It’s that push and pull of their relationship, isn’t it? What has it really been for her? Forget Johnny and Brock, he’s having trouble even defining what he and Claire are to each other. 

“Sorry,” Claire says, voice small. Timothy relaxes but doesn’t reach out for her again. “I just - I just hope that Mr. Larson can protect him, too, even if he doesn’t like the idea of Brock being, you know. His preferences,” Claire finishes delicately.

“Right.”

Silence stretches out between them.

“I, um. I should go,” Timothy says at last. He’s not sure if Claire wants him to leave or stay. It looks like she’s caught between both: she’s wearing a little frown and looks distracted again.

His phone rings just as he’s groping around for his boxers. Timothy grabs it and hits the green “answer” button before even checking who it is.

“Is this Mr. Hunter?” an unfamiliar voice asks.

“Yeah, why?” Timothy asks. He sandwiches the phone between his shoulder and neck as he begins putting on his clothes.

“I’m Mr. Larson.” Timothy sucks in a breath. _Speak of the devil._ “I have reason to believe that you and your newspaper colleagues are, or were, involved with my son?”

Timothy nearly drops his phone. “Uh, yes, that’s correct?” His voice ticks upwards at the end. It makes him feel like he’s all of thirteen again, stuck with an unfamiliar body and a voice that kept cracking. Somehow Mr. Larson has the same effect on him, even though they’ve never even met - Timothy doesn’t want to imagine what he’d be like in person.

Unfortunately, it appears he’s about to find out: “Yes, Brock and I would like to meet with you and your...ah...friends.” Mr. Larson clears his throat. “Tomorrow afternoon in the boardroom. This is off the record, by the way, so don’t try anything funny. I’ve got more lawyers than you can even believe. And if you have done anything - anything - to my son -”

Mr. Larson clicks off before he finishes his threat or Timothy can ask how he found his number.

“Who was that?” Claire asks from the bed.

“Mr. Larson,” Timothy replies. “Clear your schedule for tomorrow.”

***

“Mr. Larson called?” Allan asks at breakfast. “Jesus.”

He doesn’t comment on Timothy’s rumpled uniform. He didn’t have much time to button his dress shirt properly after leaving Claire’s so it hangs unevenly. Timothy’s stomach growls. He’s skipped breakfast way too many times in the past week or so and wants to try and stop doing so before it can solidify into a habit.

“I know.” Timothy slumps into the chair next to him and watches Claire get a little carton of orange juice and a gluten-free blueberry muffin. She looks remarkably well put together for a post -

Timothy wonders if it counts as a walk of shame if it’s from your own room. And besides, is she ashamed at all? Should they be?

He sighs and picks at the yogurt he’d grabbed absentmindedly before meeting Allan. There’s no real time to prepare - Timothy wonders if Mr. Larson planned it that way, or if Brock’s dad just moves that fast. Either way, he should probably put on a clean shirt at least.

***

Intimidating would be an understatement for what the boardroom looks like. Especially since Timothy has never been in here. (He can’t speak for his friends since their financial situation is kind of different than his. Plus, even though it’s Timothy who does the printing, Allan’s often the one to press flesh with the big-name donors.)

The whole room is paneled in rich mahogany but at least it has a huge window along one wall that prevents it from becoming too dark and depressing. Although it’s mid-October now, sunlight streams in. Brock’s already at the table waiting for them. He looks gaunt, dwarfed by the size of the room and the heft of the table that dominates it. There’s no sign of the buff footballer Timothy has always known.

It’s a stark contrast to his dad, who’s sitting next to Brock, hands folded neatly in front of him. He’s got a class ring on his right hand; its dull shine reflects off the surface of the table. Mr. Larson hasn’t changed at all from the photo Timothy saw: a perfect coiff of blonde hair that’s going slightly gray at the temples, a wide and easy smile (although in this case it appears forced), and a tan no doubt earned from years working a yacht somewhere near - Timothy guesses, based off pretty much all his classmates - Martha’s Vineyard. He has the broad chest and thick arms of a former quarterback still hanging onto his glory days, and wears a suit in an expensive cut, which makes Timothy feel even smaller and insignificant than he already does just by being in a room that reeks of wealth and tradition. Even more pieces of Brock’s life come together the longer Timothy looks at him. He looks like the sort of person who would say “if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids” in one of those old _Scooby Doo!_ movies.

“Do you realize,” Mr. Larson begins, his tone calm in a way that is way, way too creepy, “what you have done to Brock? I’m sure you didn’t consider this when you were playing around in your little newsroom, but there are lives behind the headlines.”

That easy smile vanishes. Brock flinches almost imperceptibly. He and Johnny don’t look at each other as Mr. Larson continues. Any acknowledgement would be too large of a risk.

“You have forced me to pay for _very_ expensive rehab and risked permanent damage to a reputation that has been carefully honed from years of donations to this school. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” they all chorus - even Brock, who mumbles it along with them.

“I don’t think you do,” Mr. Larson says. There’s now a flinty edge to his voice. “You know, there are so many alumni who just love the _Gazette_ and what it says about our school. It would be such a shame if anything happened to your paper, then, wouldn’t it? Especially if you happened to publish something damning.”

Timothy’s blood goes uncomfortably cold, and it’s not from the air conditioning. Claire’s sitting rigidly next to him. He can’t tell what Allan’s doing since he’s on her other side, but he can picture his mouth, set in a thin but determined line. _Don’t fuck this up for us,_ Timothy mentally pleads.

Mr. Larson chuckles to himself before they can say anything more. He gets up, lifts an impressively large briefcase with one hand and opens the boardroom door with the other. It swings shut on creaky hinges, landing with a loud, ringing slam.

Brock starts crying as soon as his father is gone. His tearful rage is directed at Johnny. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” Brock exclaims. “What Grady had done to you? Why didn’t - why didn’t you stop it?”

Johnny moves to speak but Brock stops him. “You knew. You fucking _knew_.”

Timothy, Claire, and Allan get up to leave but Brock stops them. “No. No. You’re the ones - you’re complicit! Fuck you. _Fuck_ you.” His sobs are all hiccupy. He’s shaking, crunching in on himself with clenched fists, murmuring _fuck_ over and over.

He looks up at them, eyes glittering dully with tears, his sadness and fear palpable. Where do they go from here?

“When did he do it to you?” Brock asks. “Why did you - you -” He turns away.

“Last year,” Johnny says quietly.

“So you just let this happen to me instead. Was this some weird revenge plot for what happened with my dad? Because whatever it was you fucking succeeded,” Brock spits, blinking hard as if to stop the flow of tears.

Johnny bangs his fist on the table. “I didn’t know, ok? I didn’t until these guys -,” he gestures expansively, “told me. I was scared, too. I wanted to save you, Brock, not punish you.”

Brock laughs in a way that sounds exactly like his dad: cold and humorless. Yet he seems somewhat accepting, too, given by his heavy sigh. “Fuck this shit, ok? And fuck my dad, too. Write whatever you want.” His mouth curves up in a wry smile. “You know what? I’ll even help you.”

***

Having Brock in the newsroom is surreal. Dex just stares at him the whole time, gaping like a fish. Lewis and Kate are, as usual, hard to read.

Brock tells the whole story again, standing behind Allan as he types. He sounds more confident now despite the weight of how serious this is. At one point he even laughs when Claire talks about the search she and Timothy did.

“Jesus, you’re good,” Brock murmurs. He seems to acknowledge the lengths they actually went to in order to solve this thing.

“What do you think of this headline?” Allan asks. They crowd around his computer, where he’s got a dummy layout of the Gazette pulled up. He’s written _COKE BUST AT ALFRED PIERCE LEAVES SCHOOL REELING_ above Grady’s mugshot. Timothy still finds it weird to see Grady like that. Especially since Grady looks pretty much the same as he always did: young for forty-five, sandy blonde hair, bright green eyes.

Claire whistles lowly. “God, Allan, I never pegged you for the dramatic type. That’s usually my job.”

Allan ignores her and continues typing. “...local boy was implicated…” He’s inserted one of Claire’s photos of the coke baggie - minus Brock's name, for privacy - In the left-hand corner, next to the mugshot. “For extra effect,” he explains, as if an explanation is truly necessary.

Brock nods, satisfied. “Let’s take this to the printers.”


	12. Epilogue

Timothy joined the _Gazette_ pretty much the first week of freshman year. He’d gone to the activities fair in an attempt, like all the other frosh, to find something, anything to identify with - a ready-made social status, for better or worse.

The paper had a tiny booth that was sandwiched between the debate team and the Alfred Pierce radio station. It was hard to hear over the radio station’s speakers, but Timothy remembers the seriousness of the students (now long-since graduated) who stood at the _Gazette_ ’s booth with sample papers in hand. He remembers his wide-eyed excitement at the idea of being part of something so important, so special. The tradition of it.

In the two years since then, though, reality has set in.

The _Gazette_ has a depressingly low circulation rate. Sure, the alumni that Mr. Larson talked about keep the subscription numbers up and pay for the ink, but things on the Pierce campus look very different. Lewis and Kate are constantly snubbed when they stand outside the chapel trying to pass out issues, and the rest of them have been heckled, ridiculed, and endured “accidental” spills in the caf more times than they can count. If it wasn’t for Claire’s aggressive social media work, they’d be ignored completely.

Yet once the story on Grady is published on that Friday, Timothy senses something different in the air. A calm before the storm. It starts with mutters in the caf at breakfast - a few rustling papers here and there, random giggles, the clicking of phones as the news spreads.

When he walks to World Civ for the makeup exam, a few girls he doesn’t recognize gaze at him in awe. They all jostle with each other to be the first to open the door for him. The whispering gets louder. It’s confined to the back row for now until Ms. Hendricks shushes everyone and the exam starts. For once, Timothy feels confident about it. Or maybe he’s just accepted whatever luck he’s going to get.

Class ends and the whispering returns in full force. The girls - and even a few guys - give Timothy an appreciative once-over. It’s like being a celebrity. Timothy’s never felt this way before. He scuttles to the newspaper table, clinging to his backpack, and dumps it in the chair next to him as he sits down with a heavy sigh.

Claire approaches and Timothy removes his backpack to clear space for her.

“At least ten different guys asked me to the Fall Formal,” she says.

Timothy can’t tell if she’s surprised or pleased. Either way, he feels a drop in his gut. “What did you say?” he asks nervously.

She smiles at him - the smile he really likes, the one she shares with him after they’ve had sex, or when she meets his eye across campus. It crinkles her nose and makes a tiny dimple appear on the right side of her mouth. “I said I was taken.”

He takes a bite of salad, suffused with relief.

“You won’t believe this,” Allan says when he joins them, “but people have started coming up to me to ask about how to subscribe.”

Timothy and Claire golf-clap while Allan bows.

Lewis and Kate show up about ten minutes later. They often show up right before lunch ends as if they operate on their own schedule. Timothy has long-since accepted that they probably do.

“Ugh,” they say, as ever, in unison. “We ran out of papers this morning and Allan had to print more. He says that the machine can’t keep up at this rate.”

“That’s a good problem to have,” Claire says, at the same time that Timothy murmurs “for once” under his breath.

He sweeps his gaze over the caf. It feels new somehow, full of positive energy and excitement. Timothy notices that Brock’s just walked in. He carries himself differently, too, even though he wasn’t named in the article. He seems at peace, with an easy stride to his gait, and it looks like he’s started to fill out again. Johnny sits with him, somehow easily folded into the rest of the football team. Timothy supposes that he’s just that gregarious.

It’s as if things have changed in the blink of an eye, with no trace of the fringe operation that the Gazette was before. The whole thing isn’t exactly royal treatment, but it’s almost dizzying.

“So,” Allan says casually. “How about that Fall Formal?”

Timothy sits back, eyes wide. Claire nearly drops her fork. “What?” Timothy splutters. “I thought you were above that kind of thing.”

Allan shrugs. “I guess we’ve seen that this school is full of surprises.”

***

Timothy gets a rented tux at the last minute and spends at least half an hour in front of the mirror adjusting and re-adjusting. It’s not itchy, but he’s not used to being so dressed up. Claire asked him to go all-out stereotypical, so he’s going to drive over to her house and pick her up.

He can’t remember if he’s ever been to Claire’s house before. Maybe for some party freshman or sophomore year? Honestly, after awhile it all blurs together. He plugs the address she gave him into his phone, puts it on the dashboard holster, and sets off.

The way winds up through a thicket of forest. The houses here get larger and larger, farther and farther apart. Timothy’s full ride-scholarship self gets more and more uncomfortable the more he drives.

“Your destination is on the left!” his GPS chirps. Timothy shuts off his phone and looks up.

Holy fuck. Claire’s place is _huge_. It’s set back from the street and has two wings with rows and rows of windows. The seashell-grey color would be a soothing contrast to the long and somehow-imposing driveway but it’s not. It’s really not. Timothy’s nearly scared to drive up towards it but he manages to do so, albeit cautiously. Claire’s mother opens the door on the first ring. “And you would be?” she asks sharply.

Timothy almost starts laughing because his mental image of Claire’s country club mother wasn’t too far off. She’s an older version of Claire: just as tall, with hair that’s brassier and going grey. The Ralph Lauren dress she’s wearing looks as though it was custom-designed.

“You’re here!” Claire says from the stairwell.

Timothy looks up. Heart stops, stomach drops. She’s wearing a purple dress and her hair is pulled up high, but not tight, on her head. Her burgundy lipgloss matches her trademark nails. Claire descends the stairs like some kind of dream and floats past her mom. She grabs Timothy’s bicep to steer him back out the door, using her other hand to wave goodbye.

The car ride is uncomfortably silent at first. Somehow this makes it real, a new chapter of their relationship. Timothy’s grip is tight on the wheel. Claire’s perfume - that soft, beautiful floral that captured him so long ago - is soothing, though, and before too long Timothy relaxes.

He clears his throat. “You clean up nicely,” he begins, then mentally kicks himself for saying something that’s rude and/or inappropriate.

Claire laughs. “So do you.”

Phew. Crisis averted. Timothy laughs in return and thanks her before turning serious. “I want you to know something,” he begins.

“Yeah?” she asks.

“I. This.” God, Hunter, get it together! a suspiciously Johnny-esque voice shouts in his head. Timothy clears his throat and tries again. “This wasn’t just a prep school hookup for me.”

“It wasn’t for me, either,” Claire says in a tone that suggests - not quite surprise, but something akin to sounding like she thought they’d already been over this. “So what are you saying then?”

“Do you - ” Timothy asks. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

Claire slaps the dashboard and collapses into a heap of giggles. “I thought you’d never ask. C’mon, you’re going to miss the turn.”

So that’s that.

They walk into the gym together - seriously, this is one of the most prestigious private schools in the state, surely they can rent something better? - and encounter Allan lurking by the punch bowl.

Timothy helps himself to a glass and hands another to Claire. He’s utterly self-conscious, hyper-aware of Allan’s presence - how will they tell him? - and nearly drops the thing. He takes a sip, just for something to do, and almost spits it out. The punch is sickeningly sweet and he’s pretty sure someone spiked it. Probably Johnny, since the kid has been known to carry a flask.

He and Claire stand there by the table, drinking punch, not really talking.

At least Pierce did spring for nice decorations. It doesn’t even look like a gym if you ignore the basketball lines and the hoops that have been folded upwards and out of the way. Although it’s a Fall Formal, the theme doesn’t come off as cheesy. Instead, there’s dark brown drapery framing the doorway and large, abstract leaf shapes on the walls that gleam subtly in the half-light.

Timothy feels satisfied. They protected the school so things like this can happen without any dark shadows in the way. Grady’s put away and Timothy’s heard rumors of a replacement hire that gets rave reviews on TeacherScore. He can see Johnny and Brock talking in low tones over in the corner. Brock is headed to Pleasant Meadows Center in Greenwich next week, one of those places that’s more hush-hush and anonymous. Mr. Larson’s work again. Now, though, he and Johnny can laugh together somewhat freely. Timothy smiles to himself.

“Relax,” he hears Claire say. “Come here.”

He turns, and Claire reaches up to kiss him. It feels like the whole room is holding its breath, watching. When they pull away Allan lifts his punch glass. “Mazel tov.”

“Thanks,” Timothy replies, giddy.

Claire hugs him into a slow dance and they sway side to side as some quiet, jazzy rendition of a Top 40 hit plays around them. They dance in silence for a few beats before Timothy risks speaking again.

“Claire, there’s something else,” he says.

“What?” Claire gives him her most skeptical expression, the one that fits her so well, the one that has made sure that she’ll be part of the editorial board of the Gazette next year instead of just a reporter.

Timothy summons every last scrap of courage he has and valiantly tries to ignore his churning stomach. He tries to tell himself it’s just the punch. “I love you.”

The words finally came. Claire smirks at him, but it’s more teasing than mean. “I know.”

With that, Timothy kisses her again. He feels her smile as she kisses back and the lights go on spinning above them. She’s a vision. She’s _his_. They can handle whatever comes next.


End file.
